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High winds made for a busy Wednesday night in Armstrong County and various crews faced an even busier Thursday as they repaired downed power lines and cleared trees from roadways.

Allegheny Power spokesperson Doug Colafella said about 1,100 customers lost electric service in Armstrong County.

"Actually, Armstrong County was probably the least-affected county in Western Pennsylvania," he said. "In Washington County, we have 15,000 customers without power and another 21,000 in Westmoreland. "

"However, we have crews out in all affected areas," he said Thursday. "We have called in line crews from other parts of our service areas that were not affected by the storm, and we have called in subcontractors to get power restored as quickly and safely as possible."

Colafella said it was difficult to estimate exactly when power was to be restored to all affected Armstrong County areas, but he expected most customers may have their power restored by Thursday night.

"It's really too early to say exactly when power can be restored," he said, "because on the first day of the aftermath of any storm you almost always find problems in other areas that you may not have been aware of. We're doing the best we can in a rapidly changing situation. We have 71 separate cases of outages in the county that we know of. We prioritize them by giving the outage area with the largest number of customers first priority."

In northern Armstrong County, primarily around Parker, residents are served by the Central Electric Cooperative. Central Electric's spokesperson Christina J. O'Donnell said 3,500 members of the Parker-based company were without electricity as of early Thursday. Additionally, scattered outages existed throughout the company's territory which includes portions of Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, Clarion, Forest. Mercer and Venango counties.

O'Donnell warned residents to stay away from downed power lines. She said Central Electric customers may report outages or downed by calling 800-282-8610.

PennDOT District 10 crews in the county also faced changing conditions. Armstrong County assistant supervisor Ken Campbell said that PennDOT received 30 to 40 reports of trees down on roadways.

"On the way to such reports, however, crews found other downed trees that were not immediately reported," Campbell said Thursday. "So in al,l we may have had to clear 70 or more trees, and there may be more discovered as the day goes on."

Windstream representative Erin Ascione said there were minimal phone outages reported in the Kittanning area. Phone service was interrupted by several downed phone poles and the company placed several remote sites in emergency generator power.

Lee Hendricks of the National Weather Service, Pittsburgh, said that while there were no official reports of wind speeds in Armstrong County, a 66 mph wind was reported at the Jefferson County airport and a Washington County amateur radio operator, a member of the NWS's Skywarn system, recorded an 87 mph wind gust on his personal weather station. The top recorded windspeed was 92 mph in Allegheny County. Hendricks said winds were expected to diminish throughout the day.

Armstrong County saw little in the way of rain from the storms that moved through the area, with many rain gauges measuring between a quarter to a third of an inch from 7 a.m. Wednesday to the same time Thursday. The weather service has rain gauges set up at the river locks at various locations in the county.

In addition to high winds and rain, unseasonably warm temperatures were a cause for concern for Armstrong County EMA director Randy Brozenick because of rapid melting of river ice.

River levels along the Allegheny River are recorded on hourly basis on locks from Kittanning to Pittsburgh, and on an as-needed basis for Locks 8 in Mosgrove and 9 in Rimer.

River levels at Lock 9 were 16.92 feet at 1 p.m. Thursday with a flood stage of 19 feet. Levels at Lock 8 were 17.6 feet at 1 p.m. Thursday with a flood stage of 19 feet. Levels at Lock 7 in Kittanning were 17.3 feet at 2 p.m. Thursday with a flood stage of 21 feet. Levels at Lock 6 in Clinton were 17.6 feet at 2 p.m. Thursday with a flood stage of 21 feet.

Brozenick said his office did not anticipate flooding but observers such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, municipal officials and the National Weather Service have been keeping a close eye on river levels.

"What concerns us more than the river is the small creeks in the area," Brozenick said. "Small creeks are generally shallow and therefore tend to be more packed with ice and can jam up easier. Right now we don't anticipant any flooding but we are monitoring the situation."

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