WHEELING - American Electric Power officials estimate it could be several days before power is restored for thousands of Ohio Valley residents after a storm ripped through the region Friday evening.
At press time, AEP provided the following restoration estimates: Belmont County by midnight Wednesday; Steubenville area by midnight Monday; and the Wheeling area by midnight Friday.
AEP spokeswoman Jennah Nelson said the average estimate for most of Ohio and parts of West Virginia is that people's power would restored within "five and seven days if we don't get more severe weather tonight or tomorrow."
Article Photos
A trampoline hangs in electric lines on U.S. 250 in Colerain following
Friday night’s storm. High winds cause power outages throughout the area.
Photo by
Art Limann
"We still have 530,000 people without power in AEP Ohio and into West Virginia," she said. "We have all our crews out working."
The storm, which in some areas had speeds reaching 70 mph, also came with a tornado warning Friday evening. It caused property damage, downed trees and powerlines and even ripped roofs off a church in Somerton in Belmont County and the Centre Foundry in Warwood.
While waiting for their power to be restored Bethlehem residents Bruce Grover and Robert Straight chatted outside Straight's house Saturday evening. Both were trying to keep cool and keep their frozen foods frozen.
"What else can you do but talk about when your power is going to come on," Grover said.
Straight said his block loses power during wind storms because it is connected to a "break line" that easily come undone as a safety measure. In the meantime, Straight was just hoping for a "nice breeze" to help stay cool.
The storm, which in some areas had speeds reaching 70 mph, also came with a tornado warning Friday evening. It caused property damage, downed trees and powerlines and even ripped roofs off a church in Somerton in Belmont County and the Centre Foundry in Warwood.
While waiting for their power to be restored Bethlehem residents Bruce Grover and Robert Straight chatted outside Straight's house Saturday evening. Both were trying to keep cool and keep their frozen foods frozen.
"What else can you do but talk about when your power is going to come on," Grover said.
Straight said his block loses power during wind storms because it is connected to a "break line" that easily come undone as a safety measure. In the meantime, Straight was just hoping for a "nice breeze" to help stay cool.
The storm did damage from Indiana to New Jersey, although the bulk of it was in West Virginia, Washington and suburban Virginia and Maryland. At least six of the dead were killed in Virginia, including a 90-year-old woman asleep in bed when a tree slammed into her home. Two young cousins in New Jersey were killed when a tree fell on their tent while camping. Two were killed in Maryland, one in Ohio, one in Kentucky and one in Washington.
Illinois corrections officials transferred 78 inmates from a prison in Dixon to the Pontiac Correctional Center after storms Friday night caused significant damage, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Stacey Solano said.
No one was injured, Solano said. Generators are providing power to the prison, which is locked down, confining remaining inmates to their cells.
Especially at risk were children, the sick and the elderly. In Charleston, W.Va., firefighters helped several people using walkers and wheelchairs get to emergency shelters. One of them, David Gunnoe, uses a wheelchair and had to spend the night in the community room of his apartment complex because the power - and his elevator - went out. Rescuers went up five floors to retrieve his medication.
Gunnoe said he was grateful for the air conditioning, but hoped power would be restored so he could go home.
"It doesn't matter if it's under a rock some place. When you get used to a place, it's home," he said. More than 20 elderly residents at an apartment home in Indianapolis were displaced when the facility lost power due to a downed tree. Most were bused to a Red Cross facility to spend the night, and others who depend on oxygen assistance were given other accommodations, the fire department said.
Others sought refuge in shopping malls, movie theaters and other places where the air conditioning would be turned to "high."
In Richmond, Va., Tracey Phalen relaxed with her teenage son under the shade of a coffee-house umbrella rather than suffer through the stifling heat of her house, which lost power.
"We'll probably go to a movie theater at the top of the day," she said.
Phalen said Hurricane Irene left her home dark for six days last summer, "and this is reminiscent of that," she said.
Others scheduled impromptu "staycations" or took shelter with friends and relatives.
Robert Clements, 28, said he showered by flashlight on Friday night after power went out at his home in Fairfax, Va. The apartment complex where he lives told his fiancee that power wouldn't be back on for at least two days, and she booked a hotel on Saturday.
Clements' fiancee, 27-year-old Ann Marie Tropiano, said she tried to go to the pool, but it was closed because there was no electricity so the pumps weren't working. She figured the electricity would eventually come back on, but she awoke to find her thermostat reading 81 degrees and slowly climbing. Closing the blinds and curtains didn't help.
"It feels like an oven," she said.
The storm that whipped through the region Friday night was called a derecho, a straight line wind storm that sweeps over a large area at high speed. It can produce tornado-like damage. The storm, which can pack wind gusts of up to 90 mph, began in the Midwest, passed over the Appalachian Mountains and then drew new strength from a high pressure system as it hit the southeastern U.S., said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
"It's one of those storms," Jackson said. "It just plows through."
