Some residents in McKean and Potter counties were still without
power Monday afternoon after strong winds left over from Hurricane
Ike whipped through eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania on Sunday
night.

Linda Routzahn, area manager for Penelec, said at 2:30 p.m.
Monday that 1,053 customers were still without power in the
Bradford area, and 871 were still without power in Eldred.

“We have crews out there assessing the damage and trying to
prioritize outages,” she said. “This is a fairly extensive outage,
so we have crews from eastern areas that weren’t affected providing
assistance throughout the region.”

The winds, which reportedly gusted as high as 44 mph at Bradford
Regional Airport and reached 69 mph – tropical storm levels – in
Clearfield, according to a meteorologist with the National Weather
Service in State College, hit the hardest throughout western
Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

Officials from FirstEnergy Corp., Penelec’s parent company, said
across the affected area, one million customers lost power between
Sunday night and Monday morning. The company returned power to
roughly half – 500,000 – by 10 a.m. Monday, officials said.

FirstEnergy’s Web site, at 5:30 p.m. Monday, still listed
Bradford, Custer City, Cyclone, Derrick City, Duke Center, Eldred,
Gifford, Kane, Lewis Run, Ludlow, Port Allegany, Rixford,
Shinglehouse, Smethport and Galeton as having customers without
power.

Routzahn said Penelec should have power restored to all of its
customers by Thursday, “at the latest.”

Downed trees caused many of the power outages throughout the
region, keeping road crews busy throughout the night and into
Monday morning.

Bradford City Department of Public Works Director Gary Alcock
said the city had five downed trees on North Center, East Main,
Leigh and Clarence and Sherman streets as well as on Cottage
Row.

Meanwhile, Foster Township Road Superintendent Joe Sweet said
his crews cleaned up debris and branches on Hedgehog Lane, Lafferty
Hollow Road, Harrisburg Run, Bolivar Drive, Interstate Parkway and
Kenmore Acres. He added there were no complete road closings, and
all partial closings were opened back up by 11 a.m.

There were complete closings in other areas of the county,
according to an official with the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation.

Summit Road – connecting Looker Mountain Trail and Derrick Road
– was closed completely at 10:30 p.m. Sunday and re-opened to
single-lane traffic at 8 a.m. Monday, the official said. A tree had
fallen and brought down wires with it, prompting the nine-hour
shutdown.

Route 46 in Crosby was still closed at 3:30 p.m. Monday due to
power lines, but the official said the “road will be opened up as
soon as the utility company clears the power line.”

The Coudersport state police barracks was also without power and
operating by generator Monday, troopers said.

According to officials from the Allegheny National Forest,
Forest Supervisor Leanne Marten ordered that all off-highway
vehicle trails be closed until forest personnel can conduct a
damage assessment and deem the trails safe for public use. The
assessment and clean-up is expected to keep the trails closed until
the latter part of the week, officials said.

Both Ranger Districts, Bradford and Marienville, were without
power as of 1:30 p.m. Monday.

Cattaraugus County, N.Y., also sustained wind damage from the
powerful winds. Nearly 2,200 people throughout the county were
without power and 25 trees were reported down in the Olean area
alone.