Storms knock out power to thousands

GIRARD

John Gramelt of Girard noticed the sky darken Friday afternoon just as the lights started to flicker in his home.

His wife, Laura, didn’t initially hear the storm over the sound of the air conditioning, but when she walked outside afterward, she saw trees down throughout her Beechwood Avenue neighborhood.

“It just came like out of nowhere,” she said.

A storm hit the Mahoning Valley just after 2 p.m. Friday, leaving thousands of people without power. The impact was most acute in Girard, Liberty Township and Brookfield Township.

There was also another storm about noon in the northern part of Trumbull County, near Orangeville.

A spokesman for the National Weather Service in Cleveland said such clusters of storms are common in the summer, due to heat and high levels of humidity.

As of 5 p.m., more than 3,000 FirstEnergy customers were without power in Trumbull County. There were also more than 4,000 people without power in Mahoning County, mostly in the Youngstown area.

By 9 p.m., only 140 First-Energy customers were still without power in Mahoning County.

Read more about it in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.