From staff reports
High winds that started late Wednesday morning and continued well into the evening wreaked havoc across the region.
Venango County 911 fielded dozens of calls all over the county about downed trees, including some that landed on homes and power lines. A dispatcher said 55 downed trees had been reported by 5 p.m., and many more calls came in over the next few hours.
Numerous power outages were reported in several counties, and many of the outages were the result of trees toppling onto power lines. There were also reports of trees and transformers on fire, and traffic was disrupted in many areas by trees that fell across roadways.
Electric lines down in Sandycreek Township on South Penn Road caused a brush fire, requiring the attention of Sandycreek Volunteer Fire Department. The call was reported at approximately 7 p.m. Wednesday night and the scene was cleared just over an hour later.
Crews from Parker-based Central Electric Cooperative were busy all day restoring power to members of the utility’s seven-county service area that includes parts of Venango, Clarion, Forest and Armstrong counties.
Central Electric said 1,904 members were still experiencing service interruptions at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday.
Some of the hardest hit areas included the Parker area of southern Clarion County along with Elk, Ashland, Beaver and Highland townships in Clarion County and Rockland Township in Venango County.
The utility said crews would continue to work throughout Wednesday evening and today, but because of additional outages and the widespread nature of the event full restoration isn’t expected until at least the end of today.
Central Electric said members can report outages by calling (800) 282-8610. The utility serves about 25,000 members with more than 3,000 miles of distribution line.
Meanwhile, Penelec crews were also busy dealing with thousands of outages in the area serviced by its parent company, FirstEnergy Corp.
At 5 p.m., the FirstEnergy website said there were 1,321 outages in Crawford County, 1,151 in Venango County, 616 in Forest County and 48 in Clarion County.
At 8 p.m. those numbers were 1,331 in Crawford, 1,051 in Venango, 911 in Forest and 325 in Clarion.
