American Electric Power says it should have power restored to nearly all Central Ohio area customers later today.
According to estimates from AEP, more than 42,000 and businesses were affected by the outage, which was caused by downed power lines from high winds that swept over Central Ohio on Wednesday.
As of 4 a.m. Thursday, AEP reported that around five-thousand customers were still without power. Pending further weather issues, estimated restoration time for the Chillicothe area is 3 pm.
South Central, and Dayton Power & Light also report scattered outages in their online outage maps. American Electric Power also has a map available.
AEP advises to be aware of potential hazards:
- Downed power lines. Stay away from any downed wires and report them to AEP Ohio on our mobile app, AEPOhio.com, or call 911 or AEP Ohio at 800-672-2231.
- Limbs, leaves and objects moved by the wind could hide downed wires. Investigate your surroundings before trying to clean up any debris.
- Watch for utility workers and first responders at the side of the road and slow down near any work areas.
- Trees damaged by wind could fall or drop limbs; AEP Ohio encourages everyone to look up and stay out of the line of fire.
- Traffic lights may not be functioning. Treat all such intersections as four way stops.