March weather roars, downing trees, power lines in Valley

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

After a wild, windy Wednesday, things will calm down today and begin to cool before evening showers deliver 1 to 3 inches of snow.

Eric Wilhelm, the meteorologist at The Vindicator’s broadcast partner 21 WFMJ-TV, said temperatures today will drop to 40 degrees, and he expects to see snowfall beginning in the evening and continuing into Friday morning.

Wednesday, high winds across Mahoning and Trumbull counties – gusting to 70 miles per hour shortly after 5 p.m. at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport – downed trees and power lines throughout the day.

FirstEnergy reported outages across Mahoning and Trumbull counties. A total of 2.37 percent of the population FirstEnergy serves was affected by the outage, according to the company’s website.

The areas affected were Austintown, Beaver, Boardman, Canfield, Ellsworth, Green, Jackson, Lowellville, Milton, New Middletown, Poland, Springfield, Struthers and Youngstown.

In Trumbull County, 4.71 percent of the population served was affected by the outages in these areas: Bazetta, Bloomfield, Braceville, Bristol, Brookfield, Champion, Farmington, Fowler, Girard, Greene, Hartford, Howland, Hubbard, Kinsman, Liberty, Lordstown, Mecca, Mesopotamia, Newton, Niles, Orangeville, Southington, Vernon, Vienna, Warren, Weathersfield and West Farmington.

Most of the power had been restored to the two counties by about 9:30 p.m. Late Wednesday night, FirstEnergy estimated all power should be restored by 8 a.m today.

In Youngstown, fire crews were kept busy throughout the afternoon answering calls for downed wires on all sides of town, particularly in the areas of South Avenue and Indianola Avenue.

Crews had to close off a portion of Indianola Avenue from around Tampa Avenue for a time in order to clean up some downed wires.

There also were wires down in the 1400 block of Wilson Avenue and on lower Mahoning Avenue near Portland Avenue.

State routes in Mahoning County were closed for several hours due to downed power lines, the Ohio Department of Transportation announced. Those were Route 7 at Route 165; Route 165 at Routes 164 and 626; and Route 7 between Route 14 and the Columbiana County line.

Numerous trees either fell or were blown into power lines and buildings in Trumbull County in the early afternoon, according to the county 911 center.

Just before 2 p.m., a tree fell on wires, causing the wires, pole and tree to catch on fire on Beverly Street at Northfield Street.

A telephone pole at 2400 N. Main St. in Hubbard Township broke at 2:07 p.m. near the McDonald’s restaurant.

A tree fell over and onto the roof of Apostolic Christian Church, 1454 Oakdale St. NW, at 1:55 p.m.

In Hartford Township, a tree came down on a wire, blocking traffic on Spencer Clark Road near Route 7 at 1:58 p.m., the center said. Additionally, downed power lines closed Route 7 at state Route 609 late Wednesday.

A tree also started to fall over on Niles Vienna Road about a half-mile south of state Route 82 in Vienna Township at 1:27 p.m., and a tree was coming down at the same time on wires on Collar Price Road near Route 82 in Brookfield Township.

A tree fell on wires on state Route 305 near Hoffman Norton Road in Southington Township at 1:22 p.m.

An uprooted tree was leaning on wires on Niles Road near Valacamp Avenue Southeast in Howland, a man reported at 1:04 p.m.