Thousands of Fayette customers without power
Thousands of West Penn Power customers in Fayette County were without electricity Thursday night and Friday morning, after a quick temperature drop and rain, combined with strong winds, led to downed power lines.
By Friday morning, the hardest hit areas were Brownsville and Springfield townships. As of 8:30 a.m. in Springfield, 1,130 of the township’s 1,407 customers were without power and about 84% of Brownsville Township’s 330 customers were in the dark, according to West Penn’s outage information.
“The first outages started around 8 or 9 last night,” said Todd Meyers, a spokesman for West Penn.
Meyers said there were around 2,100 customers in Fayette County without power Thursday night. Around 2:30 a.m., he said the number was up to 7,700. By late Friday morning, it was down to 5,900 without power, Meyers said.
“When we’re in a storm situation like this, we work around the clock, weekends and holidays until the last customer is restored,” Meyers said, adding that they also have contractors in addition to their crews as well as crews and contractors traveling from Ohio. “We have a good number of resources coming, but there’s a lot of damage.”
As of Friday morning, Meyers said there wasn’t an estimated time of restoration set. He said the outages will be a multiple-day event going into the weekend.
“It’s a good bet, there will be customers in Fayette County out overnight and into (Saturday),” Meyers said.
He added that the weather will not be a help, with temperatures dropping and strong winds predicted Saturday morning. That, Meyers said, could slow down crews and even add more outages on Saturday.
Greene and Washington counties also experienced outages, though on a smaller scale.
West Penn reported 1,808 in Greene without power Friday morning – mostly in Cumberland, Perry, Springhill and Wayne townships and 1,292 outages in Washington County, with more than half in East Bethlehem Township.