More storms leave Ohioans without power

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — More than 420,000 Ohio customers remained without power early Monday after a second burst of thunderstorms knocked out electricity for thousands, including customers who were left in the dark early in the weekend and had just had their power restored.
American Electric Power said storms on Sunday night left 20,000 customers without electricity while crews worked to fix earlier outages. In all, about 423,000 AEP and Duke Energy customers remained without power early Monday, mostly in the southern two-thirds of the state, as temperatures were expected to climb into the 90s.
More than 400 homes in Hardin County remain without electricity today as a result of Friday’s storm.
AEP reports 399 houses in the Kenton area are still without service. Mid-Ohio Energy’s lates update indicated they were down to a small number of scattered outages in the county.
In the Findlay area, 14,916 homes are still in the dark today, said AEP, while the number of houses without power in Lima stands at 12,467 and there are 3,439 homes with no service yet in Wyandot County.
AEP said more than half of its customers in each of 19 counties, largely in southeast and central Ohio, had no power. Word that restoration work could take five days or more left residents lining up for ice at stores and scrambling to find ways to stay cool.
Gov. John Kasich declared a state emergency over the weekend, called out the National Guard and sought help from President Barack Obama, who declared a federal emergency in Ohio. National Guard troops on Sunday went door-to-door to check on people in the Columbus and Dayton areas, and federal aid trucks carried water to six distribution points in southern and eastern Ohio.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are working with state officials and relief workers to determine the biggest and most urgent needs.
AEP said Friday’s storm was Ohio’s worst since the state was battered in 2008 by remnants of Hurricane Ike. Out-of-state reinforcements have been limited by big needs in Washington D.C. and neighboring states that were also hit by storms.
Ohio officials have confirmed one storm death. A 70-year-old woman died Friday evening in Muskingum County when a barn collapsed after she had gone to check on animals during the storm.

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Posted by Kenton Times on July 2, 2012. Filed under State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry