Austintown hit by a power outage

AUSTINTOWN — Ohio Edison estimates about 5,500 township residents are without power this afternoon.

David Turner, external affairs manager for Ohio Edison in Mahoning and Columbiana counties, said the massive power outage occurred at about noon. It was caused by line failure due to equipment malfunction. Turner said the line is fed to a substation near Salt Springs Road.

“What we’re experiencing as the weather warms up is water and ice getting into the equipment the lines are connected to, which can cause line failure,” he said.

Turner said about 1,000 customers should have power restored within an hour. “We’re going to transfer some of our load to another substation in West Austintown to get those customers back on line.”

Turner said the remaining customers should have their power restored by 5 p.m. today. He said at this point he’s unable to say if the outage was isolated or spread out around the township.