As winds begin to die down, crews to start process of restoring power across the area
A firefighter was injured Sunday night responding to one of hundreds of 911 calls related to heavy winds.
The firefighter was dispatched for a tree blocking Newell Road in Jefferson Township at about 11 p.m. A second tree fell onto a fire truck and injured the firefighter’s leg, according to Fayette County Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Sue Griffith. He was taken to a hospital by ambulance. The fire truck was damaged but able to be driven.
The roof of Catholic War Veterans Post 1669 was torn from the building at about 3 p.m. Sunday, closing East Main Street for several hours as debris scattered through the street, Griffith said.
She said the veterans post sustained the most significant reported damage.
“We had a trampoline that blew onto a neighbor’s roof. We had metal sheds that toppled,” she said.
Dispatchers received 209 weather-related calls Sunday. The high call volume slowly died down with the wind Monday.
“The majority of it was trees down, wires down, or something blowing into wires and causing them to arch,” she said.
As thousands of customers across the area remain in the dark, a West Penn spokesman said the company is focused on restoring power.
“There’s a lot of damage in many locations,” West Penn spokesman Todd Meyers said Monday.
More than 2,800 customers in Fayette County, nearly 2,900 in Greene County and a combined 33,178 in Washington and Westmoreland counties were without power after strong winds swept through the area Sunday and into Monday morning.
Meyers said the restoration effort is going to take multiple days as workers are still in the process of gathering damage assessments. He said crews will focus first on emergency situations like downed wires or those things that could endanger the public before helping municipalities clear and open roads.
West Penn workers will begin restoring power to areas where there are over 100 customers and then to the areas where the customers are more scattered, Myers said.
High winds kept company workers out of their basket trucks to restore power in problem areas on Sunday because crews cannot go up in the trucks when the wind is at more than 40 mph. Some areas recorded gusts up to 65 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
“People have to be patient,” Meyers said.
During a power outage, the Food and Drug Administration advises keeping refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the coldest temperature possible.
The agency said refrigerated food will remain cold for about four hours if the appliance is not opened. A full freezer will keep its temperature for about 48 hours if it remains closed. At half full, an unopened freezer will retain its temperature about 24 hours, according to the agency.
When power is restored, if the freezer temperature is 40 or below, the food is considered safe and may be refrozen.
Additional resources for checking on food during a power outage can be found at: https://www.fda.gov/food/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm076881.htm.