Valley cleans up after heavy snowstorm

By Christine Haines

chaines@yourmvi.com

The end of the snowstorm early Thursday didn’t necessarily mean an end of problems from the snow, as a number of residents in Mon Valley communities discovered throughout the day.

Power outages were scattered throughout the region, sometimes affecting a handful of houses, other times affecting hundreds of customers at a time. 

According to the First Energy Power Outage website, there were 150 customers without power in Allegheny County at 9 a.m., mostly in Elizabeth Borough and Elizabeth Township. By 11 a.m., that number was up to 247 customers, and by 1 p.m. it was back down to 86. 

That same yo-yo effect was seen in Westmoreland County, where there were 470 customers without power at 9 a.m., 3,145 at 11 a.m. and 345 at 1 p.m. Numbers were lower in Washington County, which had 600 customers without power at 9 a.m., 287 at 11 a.m. and 269 at 1 p.m. In the Mon Valley portion of Washington County, the largest number of outages occurred in Monongahela, with 278 customers without power early in the morning and about 10 by early afternoon.

Todd Meyers, the spokesman for First Energy’s local affiliate, West Penn Power, said those ups and downs aren’t uncommon with outages during snow events.

“It’s not unusual after a storm to see the outages keep growing,” Meyers said.

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Friday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.