Lightning blamed in power failures

BOARDMAN -- Two Saturday afternoon electrical failures knocked out power to about 12,000 customers combined, and both likely resulted from lightning damage to Ohio Edison equipment, probably caused Friday evening, said Paul Harkey, Ohio Edison area manager.
Some traffic lights along busy U.S. Route 224 were blacked out, he added.
The first failure, which began at 1:24 p.m., knocked out power to about 10,000 customers in Boardman and Poland, with most being restored in 30 minutes and all by 2:53 p.m.
That failure was linked to equipment at the Boardman Substation on Southern Boulevard, not far from where lightning struck the steeple Friday night at historic St. James Church in Boardman Park, Harkey said.
The second outage, linked to a failure at the Hitchcock Substation, West Boulevard at U.S. Route 224, began at 2:42 p.m. and ended at 3:37 p.m., knocking out power to 1,965 customers in Boardman and Canfield.