The high winds that came through our area yesterday resulted in a long night for Indiana County’s first responders.
From 6:00 PM to this morning, there were 21 calls for utility lines down reported by Indiana County 911. Affected areas included Pine, West Wheatfield, Burrell, Center, Banks, East Wheatfield, Cherryhill, Green, Canoe, and Grant Townships along with Homer City and Creekside Boroughs. Power was either blinking or going out completely throughout the night into the morning.
As of this morning, 2,222 Penelec customers are without power, with the hardest hit areas being East Wheatfield Township, Burrell Township and West Wheatfield Township. REA Energy reports 1551 of its cooperative members in Indiana County are without power, with the highest concentrations in Center, Conemaugh and Brush Valley Townships. A total of 2246 outages have been reported across the REA Energy service area, which includes portions of Armstrong, Westmoreland and Cambria counties.
Crews are working to restore power across the county, but an estimated time of restoration is not yet available.
First responders were also busy with several other calls on Friday, including a reported structure fire on West Philadelphia Street Extension in East Wheatfield Township. Armagh/East Wheatfield, Clyde, Brush Valley, Seward, and New Florence Fire Departments were called out at 8:48 PM. And a structure fire was reported on Warren Road in White Township at 11:06 PM. Indiana firefighters, Citizens’ Ambulance and the RIT Team were dispatched at that time.
