COLUMBUS, Ohio – Tens of thousands of customers across central and southeastern Ohio remain without power following a stretch of high winds and severe weather, with utility crews working around the clock to restore service.
AEP Ohio said Monday that roughly 1,300 customers were still without power from Friday’s storm, with thousands more losing service in subsequent weather. The company called the scale of the damage unlike anything it had seen in more than a decade.
“Friday’s sustained winds with gusts up to 72 mph brought down not just weak, brittle trees, but big, beautiful, healthy trees — trees that have weathered decades of storms,” AEP Ohio said in a statement.
The utility said it has more than 4,000 workers in the field, many of them now focused on smaller clusters of outages as the larger groups of affected customers have been restored.
In the Beaver area, Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative said a fallen tree snapped two utility poles and brought lines down across a road. Crews worked through the night to address the damage. In Jackson County, multiple trees fell onto power lines, with crews on site Monday morning working to safely clear debris and restore service.
Meanwhile, Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative said it had called in mutual aid from South Central Power Co., whose crews joined GMEC lineworkers in the field to speed up restoration efforts.
“When we work together, it helps get power back on for members faster, and that’s always the goal,” South Central Power said.
Crews urged residents to stay away from any downed power lines and report outages.