Many Butler County residents spend 4th of July weekend in dark amid storms, power outages
While celebrating Independence Day this weekend, many residents across Butler County found themselves without the freedom to turn on their lights.
Over a thousand Butler County residents spent at least a portion of their Fourth of July without power as a result of a fierce thunderstorm that swept through the county Friday night, prompting outages galore and flash flooding in at least one community.
As crews worked to restore power, additional storms Saturday and Sunday affected the power of even more residents. At 5 p.m. Sunday, more than 1,500 West Penn Power customers were experiencing outages and more than 600 Central Electric Cooperative customers were without power.
“The combination of prolonged extreme heat and widespread storm damage has created a complex restoration environment that our crews must carefully navigate,” according to a Saturday statement from FirstEnergy, West Penn Power’s parent company, on its website. “Despite these difficult conditions, crews are working around the clock to assess damage, make repairs, and restore service as safely and quickly as possible.”
In Slippery Rock, Mayor Jondavid Longo declared a disaster emergency Sunday afternoon due to flash flooding.
“As a direct result of these severe storms, numerous streets and roadways throughout the borough of Slippery Rock are flooded and impassable, significantly impeding the normal flow of traffic, hindering the ability of emergency response vehicles to reach residents in need, and creating hazardous conditions for motorists, pedestrians, and first responders,” the mayor said in a Sunday social media post.
One county resident, Sarah Johns, said she watched trees around her home fall onto Route 268. Another one just barely missed her house, with leaves brushing the side but no real damage done.
“It almost looked like the scene from ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” she said about Friday’s storm.
Her father, David Johns, went out after the storm subsided to clear the road. She said her family spent much of Saturday cleaning up debris from their property.
As of Sunday evening, her home remained without power.
“We’re not 100% sure when it’ll be back up,” she said.
Any swift restoration would be compounded by the combination of a holiday weekend, an ongoing heat wave, and more storms.
According to WestPennPower’s outage tracker, 1,187 Butler County customers were without power as of 3:20 p.m. Saturday, making up 1.35% of the company’s customer base in the county. Areas in the northern part of the county were especially hard-hit, including Eau Claire borough, where 168 of 175 customers were without power.
Venango Township had 181 outages out of 224 customers, and Washington Township was also dealt a major blow with 292 outages out of 476 customers. Other widespread areas of service loss were in the city of Butler with 127 outages and Clay Township with 99 outages.
Butler County’s other electric provider, Central Electric Cooperative, reported 385 outages Saturday afternoon — roughly 3% of its customer base in the county.
But it seemed the resources spent early Sunday on restoring power in the northern part of the county would be needed later in the southern portion of the county.
As of 5 p.m. Sunday in Butler County, West Penn Power reported 1,551 customers were affected with outages, and Central Electric Cooperative reported 626 ongoing outages, or 6.38% of its customer base.
More than 830 West Penn Power customers were without power in Saxonburg and the surrounding area at 5 p.m. Sunday. Just east of those communities, another more than 400 were out of power, too.
To the west of Saxonburg, Central Electric would be “assessing” outages for 475 of its customers at that time.
“Crews, a Valley Rural Electric Cooperative crew, and many contractors will continue to safely and efficiently make progress throughout the day in our service territory,” a release from Central Electric Cooperative read Sunday.
It also reminded people to assume all downed lines are energized and dangerous, to stay no less than 30 ft away, and to never remove trees and debris from power lines.
