Mother Nature gave Athens and most of central and southeastern Ohio a beating Tuesday and Wednesday, flooding several roads in Athens County and leaving thousands of residents without power.
Most power is back online, but a few hundred American Electric Power Ohio customers in the county were still in the dark as of about 10:30 Thursday morning.
Almost 5,000 were without power last night around 7:45 Wednesday.
Roads that were blocked by flooding and fallen trees were cleared by 5 p.m. Wednesday, local officials said.
At approximately noon on Wednesday, Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly posted on Facebook that several roads in the Glouster and Trimble areas were closed because of flooding. He later posted that Route 33 was closed because of a fallen tree.
The floodwaters have since receded and all roads are now open for travel, said Glouster Assistant Fire Chief Bob Funk. Glouster firefighters had to retrieve people from two cars that became stuck in the floodwater.
“If you see floodwaters, do not drive through them,” Funk said, adding that no one was injured from weather-related damage.
On the power outage side of things, it would appear Athens County fared better than some parts of the state did. The storm was so strong, it affected service in every AEP Ohio territory, officials said. The power company warned Thursday morning that some residents throughout the state will be without power for as long as seven days.
Statewide, about 5.5 percent of AEP Ohio customers were without power Thursday morning. In Athens, less than 1 percent — about 250 customers — were still in the dark.
ld311710@ohiou.edu
