Heavy ice downed power lines across Athens County today, leaving more than half the county's AEP Ohio customers without power.
AEP hopes to fully restore power to 14,000 county residents by midnight Saturday, said Jeff Rennie, an AEP spokesman. That estimate, he cautioned, could change as crews assess the damage throughout the day. Across the state, ice and falling branches left more than 108,000 without power.
We started calling in additional crews early yesterday and a lot of them arrived early this morning
Rennie said, adding that crews from western Ohio, Canton and Cleveland will operate from the Athens Fairgrounds.
AEP trucks used snow chains to navigate ice-caked roads as heavy snow and light rain fell throughout the day. Sheriff Pat Kelly allowed AEP trucks to use county roads despite the level-3 snow emergency before 1:30 p.m. today.
We're been in weather like this before and it just takes a lot of patience Rennie said.
The Scalia Lab, OU's student-run forecasting service, predicted a high-pressure system will keep the campus dry tomorrow, with a 60 percent chance of light snow at night. Snowfall could begin as early as 4 p.m. tomorrow, according to the National Weather Service.
The weather forced Ohio University and all city offices to close today.
Check http://aepcustomer.com/outagemap/main.aspx?region=aepohio for the latest outage information.
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Dave Hendricks
