SIDNEY — About 5,300 customers in Shelby County lost power from a Sunday morning storm, according to DP&L.
As of 2 p.m. Monday, 46 Shelby County and nine Sidney customers were still without power. The estimated time of restoration is expected to be by 9 p.m.
“Pretty stiff winds” and rain came through the DP&L territory from the west between 11 and 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 15, Mary Ann Kabel, DP&L director of corporate communications said. Power lines and poles were damaged by trees and tree branches from wind, which Kabel said caused the most damage.
“The National Weather Service and the Dayton Airport had the highest wind speed at 66 mph. Throughout the day and into the evening, we had a sustained wind of 30 mph,” Kabel said. “When winds are at about 40 (mph) that’s when you see downed trees, down limbs on powerlines, and so on.”
As many as 40,000 DP&L customers across the power company’s 24-county region were effected by the storm. Each outage restoration time could be different, Kabel noted, but DP&L expects for 95% of customers to have power restored by midnight.
Within the city of Sidney the Wastewater Treatment Plant briefly lost power Sunday morning while the plant was staffed, Public Works Director Jon Crusey said. The generator ran until the power was restored.
Also seven to eight traffic signals in the city were down due to no power, and an additional three traffic signals were down due to wind damage. He reported all traffic signals are now back up and are operational.
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office received 19 calls Sunday concerning downed trees or power lines in the county.
Kabel encourages customers to go to DP&L’s website for information, which can viewed by county, and also to always have a storm kit ready in the case of an emergency.
“I encourage customers to check (DP&L’S outage map) periodically. The map is refreshed every 10 to 12 minutes,” Kabel said. “Also, the thing we always stress is to have a storm kit ready, which has a blanket, flashlights — even a storage device for your phone in case you run out of power. We rely on our cellphones so much. We don’t want people sitting in their cars charging their phones.”
The outage map can be accessed on a smart phone, or other electronic device, by visiting DP&L’s website and going to the outage page at http:/dpandl.com/outages for up to date information. Kabel said customers can also check the status of an outage by calling 877-4-outage.
