UPDATE | Power outages impact thousands of Valley residents

Heavy winds took out power at locations throughout Mahoning and Trumbull counties today.

Chris Eck, a First Energy Ohio spokesman, said 1,900 locations in Mahoning County and 1,700 locations in Trumbull County had power outages as of 2:50 p.m. Monday. Eck said there were 955 outages in Boardman, 677 outages in Struthers, and 305 outages in Youngstown.

There were 500 outages in Springfield Township but have reduced to seven, he added.

Eck said First Energy Ohio has crews out to fix the power lines but are not using the bucket trucks in some areas due to heavy winds.

Eck confirmed there was an outage at Poland Middle School, 47 College St, where a branch fell on an electric pole.

Crews “are working to make it safe there,” he said.

Wind speeds throughout Monday morning and afternoon ranged from 45 to 50 miles per hour, said Eric Wilhelm, a meteorologist for 21 WFMJ-TV.

Brian Mitchell, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service’s Cleveland office, said wind speeds would gradually decreased through the night after 7 p.m.

Officials throughout the Mahoning Valley noticed the impact that the winds had.

Ed Wildes, a safety service director of Struthers, said he didn’t hear anything about outages in the area but there were branches breaking off of trees.

“Our street team has had to drive around this whole day, picking those up. No damage reported as of yet, but we’ll probably get them tomorrow,” he said.

Bill Meehan, city administrator of Lowellville, said there were a couple trees down in the area.

There was “a tree hanging up in a wire. Nothing serious. One tree blocking a road, but it was pushed off,” he said, adding that everything was cleaned up by 2:30 p.m.