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Mid-Ohio Valley cleaning up after windy, wet weekend

By Evan Bevins 4 min read

VIENNA -- Grand Central Avenue resident Jeff Smith moved his car Saturday afternoon, concerned that high winds might cause a tree limb to land on it.

"I never dreamed it would take the whole tree," he said.

But while he was out, a massive tree in his yard fell across 53rd Street and struck the home of Bick and Elaine Tice.

"I have a hole in the living room, and you can look up and see the tree limb in there," Elaine Tice said Monday morning as she swept debris off her front porch.

Debris from Saturday's storm still partially blocked multiple roads in Vienna Monday morning and power company crews continued to work to restore electric service to thousands of people in the Mid-Ohio Valley.

The tree that fell from Smith's yard blocked 53rd Street below Grand Central, so residents worked together to help each other out and check on older neighbors, said Lorraine Silva.

"I joked that we hiked stuff in," she said.

MonPower crews responded and cut sections of the tree and branches, restoring power around 10 p.m. Sunday, Smith said.

"They hustled," he said.

Vienna Fire Chief Steve Scholl estimated the department handled about a dozen calls from the storm.

The Parkersburg Fire Department responded to nine weather-related calls over the weekend. Most were minor, Fire Chief Jason Matthews said, but there was a tree across the road in the 1000 block of Emerson Avenue, and a tree fell on a house in the 1400 block of Broadway Avenue.

The Washington County Sheriff's Office fielded 58 weather-related calls between 2:15 and 10 p.m. Saturday, including a report of a tree limb through the window of a car near Devol's Dam, multiple trees down and fires started by broken power lines, Maj. Brian Rhodes said.

"It was pretty well countywide," he said. "Trampolines were blown away and rolling down people's yards."

Power outages and wind damage led Calhoun County Schools to operate under a three-hour delay Monday, while Doddridge County Schools were closed.

"The last school's electricity came up about 30 minutes before we started bringing students in," Calhoun Superintendent Kelly Whytsell said.

There were trees and utility poles down on multiple roads, some of which would have prevented school buses from turning around, she said.

"We wanted to make sure it was daylight and we could check those roads out before we sent buses down them," Whytsell said.

One bus was still unable to complete its full route due to a phone line across the road. Students who could not be picked up were excused, the superintendent said.

Power was not expected to be back on for hundreds of residents or Doddridge County High School and other nearby facilities until Tuesday, so classes were canceled Monday, Doddridge County Schools Superintendent Adam Cheeseman said. Electricity returned to the school around 10:15 a.m. Monday, and classes are set to resume today, without students having to make up any time.

"We have some accrued time. It's been a mild winter," Cheeseman said.

In Wetzel County, Short Line School students were learning remotely Monday and today, "due to issues caused by the severe winds this weekend, according to a post on the district's Facebook page.

More than 45,000 MonPower/FirstEnergy customers lost power as a result of the weekend storm, with wind gusts exceeding 60 mph and rain totaling more than 2 inches that saturated the ground, said Hannah Catlett, spokeswoman for FirstEnergy Corp. Power had been restored to nearly 40,000 by Monday afternoon.

More were expected to get electricity back Monday, with some isolated areas not restored until today, Catlett said.

"Right now, more than 250 line workers are engaged in our restoration efforts, including 30 linemen from our sister companies and about 60 from contractors," she said."They will continue working 24/7 to restore service to about 5,100 customers who remain without power."

On Monday afternoon, FirstEnergy listed 424 customers still without power in Calhoun County, 160 in Doddridge, 95 in Gilmer, 202 in Jackson, 223 in Pleasants, 632 in Ritchie, 585 in Roane, 421 in Tyler, 150 in Wetzel, 154 in Wirt and 590 in Wood.

Between AEP Ohio and the Washington Electric Cooperative, there were 1,359 outages in Washington County on Monday afternoon, 707 in Athens, nearly 140 in Monroe, 132 in Morgan and more than 200 in Noble.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com

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