Saturday thunderstorm disrupts electric service for thousands

May 22—Frank and Yvonne Harkless had feared that the more than 60-year-old tree in their front yard would fall onto their house during a big storm.

On Saturday, their fears were almost realized.

During Saturday night's storm around 8 p.m., the huge tree at their Line Street, Sharpsville, residence did fall, but it fell away from their house into Riverside Cemetery next door, which is in Hermitage. With the tree on the ground, the base stood almost 10 feet high.

The Harklesses were not at home when it fell.

"We came around the corner and she was like, 'Oh my God, Oh my God' — just freaking out," Frank said.

Yvonne tried calling officials from Hermitage, Sharpsville, and her insurance company, but had no luck because no one was in on a Sunday. She got through to Penn Power, which had been out to evaluate the situation. The tree took out only a single power line running to the cemetery's supply room.

Line Street was a detour off Lamor Road, where a tree was blocking the middle of the road Saturday night, so several people saw the huge tree lying in the cemetery.

"We've had a steady line of traffic," Yvonne said.

"People were taking pictures," Frank said, and jokingly added, "I've got to get this thing cut up, so $10 a picture or three for $15."

The strong, rapidly moving thunderstorm Saturday evening left thousands of Mercer County residents without electric service.

At its peak, about about a quarter — 13,000 — of Penn Powers 52,000 customers in Mercer County had no electricity, and the outages were spread throughout the county.

"We had widespread tree damage that brought down poles and wires. We had a couple high voltage lines go out," said Chris Eck, a spokesperson for First Energy. "We just had massive damages all over the place."

By 10:30 p.m. Sunday, the Penn Power online outage map showed about 2,400 customers still left in the dark.

Eck said the utility hopes to have full service restored by 11 p.m. Monday.

"They're going to be out there working all through the night and tomorrow to get it done," he said.

But the process, particularly in rural areas, is demanding.

"As is the nature of this work. It's time consuming," Eck said. "Especially once you flip all the switches to turn on the large amount of customers that you can recover in a short period of time. Then you get down to the single no-lights calls. and that's always the most time-consuming. It requires the most work for each individual customer to come back online."

The storm, which hit around 8 p.m. while the county was under a severe thunderstorm warning, only lasted a few minutes.

Mercer County 911 reported that several trees and lines were down as a result of the storm, widespread around the county. The Herald received reports of damage in the Trout Island and Winner Road areas in Hermitage, on Highland Road in Hermitage and Sharon, on Ormond Avenue in Sharon, and widespread damage throughout Sharpsville, including a tree down in the middle of Mercer Avenue.

NOTE: This story has been edited to clarify that the Harkless' tree did not fall on their house.

Follow Melissa Klaric on twitter @HeraldKlaric or email her at mklaric@sharonherald.com