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Ike leaves Lake Milton boater missing
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CAREFUL TRAVELER: Beth Farrell, visiting from Fairfax, Va., looks both ways at Wick and Raven avenues in Youngstown as Sunday night's winds began to abate. Power outages knocked out traffic signals all over the region, making driving difficult, especially for out-of-towners.
By Harold Gwin
Ohio Edison reported the wind cut power to 83,000 customers in the region.
YOUNGSTOWN — Authorities said Hurricane Ike may have claimed the life of a boater on Lake Milton who is missing and presumed drowned.
Milton Township Fire Chief Rick Pellin Jr. said three men were in a pleasure boat late Sunday afternoon when high winds from the remnants of the hurricane hit the Mahoning Valley. It appeared they couldn’t get off the lake quickly enough, and their boat overturned near the Mahoning Avenue causeway in waves that were reaching 6 feet high, he said.
Pellin said his department got the call about 6:45 p.m.
None of the three was apparently wearing a life jacket, Pellin said, noting that a Lake Milton State Park Department of Natural Resources officer on duty was the first to reach the scene by boat and was able to pull two of the men from the water. They weren’t injured.
The third was missing. The identities of the three were not immediately released.
Pellin said Portage and Mahoning County dive teams were called in to help search for the missing boater, but the effort was called off at dusk as the high waves made it too risky for people in the search boats. Even those along the shoreline were in danger of being pulled in by the waves, he said, adding that the recovery effort would resume at 10 a.m. today.
The region may have escaped Ike’s heavy rains and flooding, but the storm’s wind took a severe toll on trees and power lines across Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana, Mercer and Lawrence counties Sunday evening.
The area was under a high-wind warning issued by the National Weather Service that said steady winds of 30 to 40 mph were expected with gusts reaching as high as 65 mph.
The warning was issued around 5 p.m. Sunday and was to expire at 2 a.m. today but was downgraded around 10:30 p.m. Sunday as winds began to abate, according to the Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency.
Police and fire agencies across the five-county area reported hundreds of trees downed, power lines disrupted and some roads closed.
The LaBrae schools announced they would be closed today because of the high number of downed trees in the district.
Ohio Edison said the winds knocked out electrical service to 83,000 customers across the five counties and Cranberry Township just north of Pittsburgh.
There was no immediate indication as to how quickly service could be restored, said spokesman Paul Harkey, as crews were out early in the evening surveying damage and beginning repairs.
The Salem area was hardest hit with 22,000 losing service, and 17,000 customers in Youngstown had no electricity.
Warren had 14,000 customers lose power, Mercer County had 10,000, Alliance and New Castle each had 7,000, and Kinsman had 2,000. Some 5,000 customers in Cranberry lost service, he said.
CinemaSouth Inc. on South Avenue in Boardman had to send about 150 customers home when the 10-auditorium facility lost power just after 9 p.m. The moviegoers were given passes to be used at their convenience.
gwin@vindy.com