Thousands of Toledo-area electricity customers lost power for varying lengths of time Saturday when high winds snapped power poles and damaged trees.
In Oregon, National Weather Service recorded a gust of wind at 82 mph, the highest in the state, at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. Toledo saw a wind gust of 57 mph recorded at 1:12 a.m. Saturday.
The National Weather Service reported sustained winds of up to 43 mph and gusts to 59 mph at Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport during and after the passage of a line of showers and thunderstorms that crossed northwest Ohio late Saturday morning.
The high winds snapped off consecutive poles along several roadside electricity transmission lines in the area while also dropping trees and limbs onto wires.
As of noon on Saturday, about 7,000 Toledo Edison customers were in the dark, as were lesser numbers in neighboring counties. While the Lucas County number was below 700 by 6 p.m., about 2,500 customers in Henry County remained without power, and scores of individual outages still affected homes and businesses around the region.
By 8 a.m. Sunday, the sun was shining with clear skies and little wind. The Lucas County number of customers without power was below 40, and the number of customers without power had significantly dropped in Henry County to 15. In total, about 48,000 customers were without power in the Toledo and Cleveland areas, according to Toledo Edison.
Expect a high of about 50 degrees, according to the National Weather Service in Cleveland.
First Published April 1, 2023, 3:18 p.m.
