Severe storms knocked out power to about 540,000 homes and businesses across the US midwest on Thursday, according to data from PowerOutage.us. Indiana was the hardest-hit state, with more than 267,000 outages, representing about 8% of its roughly 3.3 million customers.
Storms bring damaging winds and flash flooding
“Rounds of severe thunderstorms will threaten the plains, midwest and east into Thursday with damaging wind gusts, while repeated downpours could trigger dangerous flash flooding,” the weather forecaster AccuWeather said in a statement.
First responders rescued many people from floodwaters on Wednesday as utility crews cleared trees and wires downed by the severe storms that have unleashed tornadoes, heavy rains and flash flooding across the region for several days.
Fatalities and investigations
A four-year-old boy was killed when a tree fell on a home in Geneva, Indiana, during Tuesday’s storms, the Jennings county sheriff’s office said. Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, said a resident of Roseville died during a health emergency when first responders, faced with flooded roads, couldn’t reach them.
Officials in Portage, Indiana, were investigating whether the severe weather played a role in a reported house explosion that killed a person.
Utility response and restoration efforts
Indiana’s hardest-hit utility was Northern Indiana Public Service Company (Nipsco), a unit of Indiana energy firm NiSource, with outages affecting about 258,885 homes and businesses, or about 55% of its roughly 468,000 customers in the state. In a statement, the utility said it was assessing damage and would provide estimated restoration times when the task was complete, but warned that restoration could take days in some areas as the damage was extensive. “There is widespread damage to electric infrastructure, including downed poles, power lines and trees,” it added.
Duke Energy said it was pulling in 1,000 workers to restore power to more than 171,000 customers across greater Cincinnati in Ohio over the past 24 hours. “They’ll work alongside our employees and contractors in Ohio and Kentucky to safely restore service for our customers as quickly as possible,” Andy Cassidy, Duke Energy’s storm director, said in a statement. About 46,200 homes and businesses were without power, or about 6% of its roughly 768,281 customers in Ohio.
Rescue and aid efforts
Authorities in Ohio and western Pennsylvania have reported numerous water rescues. DeWine sent 40 Ohio army national guard members to help in two counties east of Columbus, and he said dozens of local departments also responded to help, including from West Virginia.
