Electric companies working to restore power in hard-hit Richland, Ashland counties
Power is expected to be restored to FirstEnergy customers in Richland, Ashland and Marion counties within the next 24 hours, FirstEnergy spokeswoman Lauren Siburkis said Wednesday morning.
Ohio Edison restored power so far to more than 45,000 customers who were impacted by severe weather Monday night, Siburkis said.
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They continue working around the clock in 16-hour shifts to restore power to about 23,000 customers in the hardest-hit areas of Richland, Ashland and Marion counties.
"We have more than 150 line workers and support personnel from our sister utilities in less impacted areas of Ohio and western Pennsylvania on the ground to assist with restoration efforts in these areas," Siburkis said.
"By dedicating our resources to the hardest-hit areas in Richland and Ashland counties, we’re hopeful we can restore power to customers as quickly and safety as possible within the next 24 hours," she said.
"We experienced significant tree-related damage in Richland and Ashland counties, including thousands of downed power lines and broken utility poles. Our crews spent a good portion of the day yesterday clearing hazards, such as downed power lines hidden in storm debris, to keep the public safe. Similarly, before our utility crews can safely access the site of the outage and begin making the repairs, a forestry crew must come in and remove the tree debris. Unfortunately, this can be time-consuming process," Siburkis said.
A staging site is being set up at the Richland County Fairgrounds to serve as a central location for both equipment and crews during the restoration process.
"It will operate like a mini-city, offering workers a place to eat, refuel and stock up on supplies as they work to restore power in the area. It will maximize our efforts to restore power to customers as quickly and safely as possible," she said.
"While we expect to have all customers back up and running by tomorrow [Thursday] evening, most impacted customers should be restored sooner throughout the day today. As our crews work through the restoration process, status updates and restoration times for specific outage locations will be provided on our outage map: http://spr.ly/OHOutageMap," Siburkis said.
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"We encourage customers to make any arrangements they see necessary to stay safe and comfortable until their electric service is restored. We understand being without power is difficult, especially in the extreme heat. We encourage customers in all impacted areas to check with their local municipality for cooling center locations in their communities if they remain without power today," she added.
Firelands Electric Cooperative also repairing power lines
Damage from this week’s strong storms is being compared to the 2005 ice storm based on the amount of widespread destruction, a spokesperson for Firelands Electric said Wednesday.
The powerful winds and thunderstorms swept through the cooperative’s service territory beginning late Monday night and extending into the early morning hours Tuesday, causing widespread damage to trees and power lines across the Buckeye State, the spokesperson said in a news release.
Firelands Electric has been utilizing all of its line crews and operations employees around the clock since storms hit, working tirelessly to assess damage, identify problems, and get power restored. The cooperative has 995 miles of line extending across a four-county service territory and over 45% of this area was affected by the damaging storms, resulting in more than 125 separate outages spanning over 450 miles. This caused over 4,000 member-consumers of Firelands Electric Cooperative to be without power early Tuesday morning across portions of Ashland, Huron, and Richland counties, the company reported.
Firelands Electric crews made good progress overnight and early this morning. As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, the cooperative currently has 1,612 member-consumers remaining out of power. In addition to receiving assistance from three separate tree contractor companies to help with clearing tree debris, several line crews from neighboring North Central Electric Cooperative have arrived to assist Firelands Electric with restoration efforts. Crews have been assigned to each area containing outages and the cooperative hopes to make significant progress with restoral efforts throughout the day. Firelands Electric will continue to provide updates as they become available on its Facebook page at facebook.com/FirelandsElectric. The cooperative appreciates its member’s patience and understanding as repairs continue.
An American Electric Power spokesperson provided the following restoration times for customers: Bucyrus, 10 p.m. Thursday; and Mt. Vernon – 11:59 p.m. Friday. Lexington customers are in the Mount Vernon customer service area, the spokesperson said.
lwhitmir@gannett.com
419-521-7223
Twitter: @LWhitmir
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: FirstEnergy, Firelands Electric working to restore power
