Cold weather, high winds knock out power to thousands in Fayette
Thousands of West Penn Power customers in Fayette County lost power Thursday night and Friday morning after a quick temperature drop and rain, combined with strong winds, led to downed power lines.
“The first outages started around 8 or 9 (Thursday) 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, that number was down to 5,900, and by late afternoon, just over 3,800 remained in the dark.
“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.”
Meyers said there wasn’t an estimated time of restoration set.
“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.