Duquesne Light and West Penn Power crews were continuing to make progress Sunday night on restoring electric service to customers who have lost power because of damaging wind since Friday night.
As of about 11 p.m. Sunday, about 23,250 households in the Pittsburgh area had power outages. That was down from 57,000 without power at 5 p.m.
Duquesne Light was reporting about 13,500 customers out, down from 40,000. Most of those, around 12,000, were in Allegheny County.
In a notice to customers, Duquesne Light said it expected to have power restored to all customers by 10 p.m. Monday, with many restored sooner.
A Duquesne Light spokesperson said the company asked for help from utility crews in neighboring states and Canada to support restoration efforts. Aid was also received from states across the East Coast and Southeast region of the U.S., including Maine, Maryland, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Florida.
The additional crews are expected to remain onsite through at least Tuesday.
”As we move forward, our crews are focusing on restoring the largest circuits first, then smaller neighborhoods and individual homes,” the utility said. “Please be aware that strong wind gusts from Sunday afternoon through Monday evening may cause additional outages or may affect the pace of restoration.”
Duquesne Light partnered with select Giant Eagle locations to provide free water and ice through Monday for customers impacted by power outages.
West Penn Power had about 9,750 customers without service as of 9:30 p.m., down from 17,000 at 5 p.m. In the Pittsburgh area, that included about 3,500 in Westmoreland County, 1,280 in Butler County, 970 in Washington County, 1,490 in Armstrong County, 770 in Allegheny County, 1,330 in Indiana County and 410 in Beaver County.
West Penn Power was expecting to restore service to its customers in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, Indiana and Westmoreland counties by 11 p.m. Tuesday, while those out in Greene and Washington counties were expected to be back on by 11:30 p.m. Monday.
Issues relating to the wind damage and power outages were beginning to linger into the start of the week. The North Allegheny School District announced it will use a flexible instruction day on Monday because several of its bus routes were still unsafe for travel or inaccessible.
The Chartiers Valley School District had also announced going to remote instruction on Monday because of power outages and bus routes blocked by down trees.
The Plum School District said its Holiday Park Intermediate and middle schools were without full power. A notice from the district said officials will decide at 5 a.m. if those schools will shift to remote learning for the day, recognizing that some families are also without power.
A list of closings and delays is available from TribLive news partner WTAE.
Megan Trotter and Brian C. Rittmeyer are TribLive staff writers. Megan can be reached at mtrotter@triblive.com, Brian at brittmeyer@triblive.com.
