About 12,000 customers remain without powerSFlb

By KATIE SEMINARA

The number of people without electric power continues to lessen.

Even though power line repair crews have been working steadily since Monday, about 12,000 customers were still without electricity in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys Thursday.

Sunday’s storm, which was a result of Hurricane Ike, whipped through both valleys with winds gusting more than 60 mph.

The roaring winds left about 1 million households in Ohio without power and about 188,000 in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys.

Paul Harkey, area manager for Ohio Edison, said this storm caused the worst damage of any storm he’s seen in his more than 40 years with FirstEnergy.

Ohio has endured ice storms and tornados in the past but nothing that has caused this much widespread damage, Harkey said.

As of Thursday, 90 percent of customers had their power restored and the final 10 percent should be taken care of by the weekend.

The number of customers without power by county are: Mahoning, 1,000; Trumbull, 1,400; Columbiana, 4,000; Lawrence, 3,000; and Mercer, 2,400.

Columbiana County still has the highest numbers, and part of the reason is because of heavily wooded areas where more trees fell, said Harkey.

Workers are now dealing with the areas where terrain is more difficult, which makes the jobs more time-consuming, he said.

Those customers still without power are mainly single customers or lines that serve no more than five customers.

“A crew may work two, three, four hours and it might help only one customer,” said LuAnn Koch, explaining why the repair process seems to be progressing slower than it was at the beginning of the week.

Koch is also an area manager for Ohio Edison and wants customers to know crews are working vigorously to restore power, but it will still be into the weekend before all customers have electric.