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Storm damage to keep Valley dark through Thursday
CLEANING UP AFTER IKE
- More than 142,000 people in the region remained without power Monday afternoon.
- Statewide, 1 million households were left in the dark.
- Search continues for a boater, believed to have drowned on Lake Milton.
STAFF REPORT
Storm Damage
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There’s still a lot of cleanup work to do, and some of us spent another night in the dark, thanks to Ike.
The hurricane’s winds, though diminished, took down trees and limbs, severed power lines and ripped off roofing.
The storm raged across much of Ohio, prompting Gov. Ted Strickland to declare a state of emergency that will allow the Ohio Department of Transportation to help local communities remove debris from roads.
In the Mahoning Valley, restoring power to all customers could take several days, said Paul Harkey, Ohio Edison/Penn Power spokesman.
The storm roared through the Mahoning and Shenango valleys Sunday night and Monday morning at 60 mph, leaving 188,000 electric customers without power by 4 a.m. Monday.
Winds started moving through the area at 7 p.m. Sunday, snapping tree limbs and toppling trees. Most outages were caused by downed power lines.
Crews out restoring power were making headway, Harkey said.
As of 3 p.m. Monday, roughly 142,000 were still without electricity, 41,700 of those in Mahoning County. In the Warren-Kinsman area, 20,255; Mercer, 20,300; New Castle, 12,600; Salem 20,000; Alliance, 5,000; and Cranberry, 22,000.
Across Northeast Ohio about 274,000 were still without power, The Plain Dealer reported Monday night.
Harkey said crews are not shorthanded in this area because of power outages down south caused by hurricanes. He said sister companies are sending workers from Toledo and other areas in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He added that crews are on their way back from Texas.
Harkey said more than 1 million customers were affected by the high winds that toppled power lines overnight, and half of those have had their power restored. He expects all customers to have their electricity restored by Thursday. Forestry crews had to be brought in first to remove trees and limbs before wires could be restrung, Harkey said.
In Liberty, there were more than 3,000 people without power Monday. There were several downed trees causing problems on Church Hill Hubbard Road, where traffic was diverted to side streets.
In Girard, Jerry Lambert, safety-service director, said there was a large tree down on power lines at Broadway and Ward, and crews were aiming to clear it. The intersection of Cherry and North streets also was closed because of trees on a power line. The roof on the building on U.S. Route 422 that houses the Lane Ambulance that services Girard was blown back from its foundation. The crews had to temporarily relocate during the windstorm.
A power outage closed down four Trumbull County buildings downtown Monday until about 4:15 p.m., but county officials believe the offices will be back open today.
Trumbull County’s Administration Building and Child Support Enforcement Administration across the street from the courthouse, along with the Department of Job and Family Services and county-owned Wean Building a half-block north on North Park Avenue, were also closed all day Monday for lack of electricity.
The area got its power back at about 4:15 p.m. All other county offices remained open.
Statewide, hurricanelike winds left about 1 million households and businesses without electricity Monday as schools closed and rush-hour commuters faced obstacle courses of fallen trees and intersections without working traffic signals. Sunday’s windstorm killed at least three people who were hit by toppled trees, authorities said. It could take a week for power to be restored in some areas.
Winds gusting up to 78 mph ripped roofs from buildings and blocked roads across the state, with southwest and central Ohio bearing the brunt of the storm’s force, according to the National Weather Service.
A Warren Fire Department dispatcher said firefighters responded to about 55 calls for service between 6 p.m. and midnight, many of them for fire alarms that apparently had gone off because of power outages. Each time such a call comes in, firefighters respond with a fire truck, he said.
The Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department and County Jail remained open with the use of a backup generator, and the courthouse remained open all day.
All public libraries in Youngstown and Mahoning County closed. The main library in the city was without power, as are several of the branches in the county, said Janet Loew, spokeswoman for the library system.
Youngstown Street Department crews worked to remove fallen trees on city streets. About 10 streets were blocked off so crews could clear the debris faster and more efficiently. Construction foreman Tom Sakmar said the majority of the debris is on the South Side.
Jason Whitehead, director of Youngstown Parks and Recreation, said trees were blocking roads — and a number of those trees have live wires in them. City crews have to wait for Ohio Edison to take care of the wires first, he said.
In Boardman, Walker Mill Road remained closed Monday night after a tree fell across the road during Sunday evening’s high winds. The Overhill Road area and Erie Street were hit hard with downed trees, said Larry Wilson, township road superintendent, although they had been cleared from roads to make them passable.
Fire Chief James Dorman said he knew of no instances where trees fell on houses. “The trees were mostly picking on the power lines,” he said.
The main station on U.S. Route 224 relied on power from a diesel generator through Sunday night; power returned at about 7 a.m. Monday. A downed tree also closed Shields Road near Park Harbour Drive.
In Poland Village, College Lane was closed early Monday because of a downed power line. A utility pole behind the main fire station snapped, taking several lines down with it; a branch across a power line on Miller Road at Struthers Road, Poland Township, closed Miller.
Chief David “Chip” Comstock of the Western Reserve Joint Fire District said downed lines and trees and power outages contributed to the decision, on advice of safety forces, for the Poland school district to cancel Monday classes.
Village Police Chief Russell Beatty Jr. said that by late morning, all of the roads in the village had been cleared and opened. Power remained out, however. “I just hope that people check on their elderly neighbors,” Beatty said.
There were power outages and downed trees throughout Austintown and Canfield.
Andrew Frost, Austintown assistant fire chief, said the majority of calls came between 8 and 11 p.m. Sunday.
“We had over 50 calls of power lines and trees down,” he said. “Some of the township still doesn’t have power back — there were a lot of trees on houses.”
Frost said some of the hardest hit areas of Austintown were Kirk Road, New Road and Wedgewood Park.
In Canfield, Fire Chief Robert Tieche said both city and township residents were without power for at least four hours Sunday night. He said the areas that took the brunt of the storm were in the main square of the city. “A portion of West Main Street, from state Route 46 into the square, was blocked off for four hours because of trees and sparking transformers.”
He said other areas with heavy damage were South Broad Street, state Route 46 and the Mill Creek MetroParks.
Police agencies in Columbiana County reported scattered power outages through their communities as street crews continued to remove downed trees and branches.
In Pennsylvania, trees and downed lines kept crews busy into Monday.
Roemer Boulevard in Farrell and Longview Road in Hermitage were still closed Monday morning, said a representative from Mercer County’s 911 dispatch center.
In Sharon, Thornton Street was still closed Monday as crews worked to clear lines and a fallen tree, according to the city fire department. The Vermeire Manor rest home on Columbia Street was without power, and the department was awaiting word to see if the home needed help moving residents to another location.
The New Castle fire department reported downed lines and trees.
At the Villa Maria complex near the Ohio line, a power outage was making work difficult, said Julie Arena, Villa Maria marketing director.
Arena said refrigerated trucks were being brought in to keep food from spoiling, and elderly nuns who needed special care might be moved. She said Penn Power informed Villa Maria that it might take until Thursday to restore power there.