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PARKERSBURG -- Thunderstorms led to power outages around the Mid-Ohio Valley from Thursday night into Friday morning.
"At the height of it, we had about 1,200 of our folks that were affected by it," said Jennifer Greene, director of marketing and member services for Washington Electric Cooperative, which serves rural customers in Washington, Noble, Monroe, Morgan, Athens and Guernsey counties. "It was the wind, mostly trees down over lines."
The highest winds recorded in the area were about 33 mph at the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport, according to James Zvolensky, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston. But there could have been higher gusts in less populated areas that simply didn't get reported, he said.
Rain weighing down the trees earlier in the day may have made them more susceptible to breaking, Zvolensky said.
Most of Washington Electric's customers had service restored by 5 a.m., Greene said, although some outages persisted after 10 a.m.
In West Virginia, MonPower had weather-related outages Friday morning, including more than 300 between Gilmer and Doddridge counties. There were a handful of lingering outages in Calhoun and Tyler counties as of 1:30 p.m. Friday.
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.