photo by: Derek Redd

Moundsville city workers cut down and remove a tree that fell Tuesday evening on Fifth Street due to a line of strong thunderstorms that moved through the area.

WHEELING — A line of strong thunderstorms barreled through the Ohio Valley Tuesday evening, leaving thousands without power as high winds toppled trees and utility lines up and down the valley.

As of 9 p.m. Tuesday more than 7,000 Appalachian Power customers were without power in Ohio and Marshall counties, according to the company’s outage map. At one point, power was out entirely at The Highlands in Triadelphia.

Trees were down “all over” Ohio County, according to Ohio County Emergency Management Director Lou Vargo. The same could be said for Marshall County, according to that county’s emergency management director, Tom Hart.

In Ohio County, Vargo said a tree had fallen into a residence. In Moundsville, city crews worked with chainsaws and a front loader to cut up and remove a large tree that had fallen across Fifth Street.

Hart said that multiple fire departments were out dealing with downed utility lines, downed trees and transformer fires throughout the evening.

In Ohio, the Ohio Valley Plaza in St. Clairsville was without power for much of the evening Tuesday, but power had been restored there by around 8 p.m. In Neffs, what initially was reported as a tree on a house and a structure fire turned out to be a tree on power lines that were arcing.

In Belmont County, damage to buildings was reported in several locations, including in Morristown where a roof was torn from a structure. In addition to temporarily blocking roads such as Ohio 9 and Ohio 147, fallen trees and limbs also brought down power lines, resulting in numerous outages. As of 8:30 p.m., AEP Ohio reported 2,254 Belmont County customers were without power.

In Harrison County, more than 5,000 AEP customers were without electricity Tuesday evening, with more than 18,000 AEP outages reported in Jefferson County and 41 in Monroe County.

South Central Power Co.’s online outage map indicated 3,125 of its Eastern Ohio customers remained without service.