REGION High winds knock out power to thousands

Trees were weakened by rain and high winds.
High winds that buffeted the region Thursday knocked out power to about 11,000 Ohio Edison and Penn Power customers in a six-county region, leaving 1,800 still in the dark as of 10 p.m.
Paul Harkey, Ohio Edison Youngstown-area manager, said crews would work throughout the night in the hope of restoring power to all by this morning.
Of the customers without power, 1,300 were in Trumbull County, including 857 in Warren and 200 in Kinsman. The other counties involved were Ashtabula, Mahoning, Columbiana, Mercer and Lawrence.
In one of the most notable outages, high winds blew wires together, knocking out power to 741 customers near Shops at Boardman Park from 11:15 to 11:46 a.m. and darkening traffic lights along busy U.S. Route 224.
The effect of winds, which gusted up to 45 mph, was compounded by rain, which dampened and weakened trees. The combination caused trees and limbs to snap and fall on power lines, causing outages, Harkey explained.
By night: The winds continued into the evening, raising the number of customers without power in Columbiana County from 28 at 6 p.m. to 500 at 10 p.m., Harkey said.
Those still without power at 10 p.m. included 500 customers in the Salem-Alliance area, 80 in Mahoning County, 100 in the Warren area, 400 in Ashtabula County and the remainder in Mercer County, Harkey said.
A supervisor at the Mercer County 911 Center said utility wires, trees and branches fell sporadically throughout the county all day. "We're not really overwhelmed with them," he said.
Road closings: No major roads had to be closed, but Mahoning Avenue was closed between Raccoon Road and Beverly Avenue for several hours Thursday evening because of a downed power line at 4321 Mahoning Ave. Fire crews responded to the scene at 4:15 p.m. and remained until 9 p.m.
Ohio Edison officials could not be reached this morning to comment. No road closings were reported by the Columbiana County Sheriff's Office or by 911 dispatchers in Mahoning, Trumbull or Lawrence counties.