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Updated 59 minutes ago
High winds that whipped through Western Pennsylvania beginning Sunday night toppled trees and disrupted power lines, causing widespread outages.
At 12:30 p.m. Monday, West Penn Power reported almost 1,000 customers in Westmoreland County were without electricity, including 272 in Salem, 129 in Ligonier Township and 117 each in Bell and East Huntingdon.
The company estimated crews could restore power to all customers by 11 p.m. Monday.
Chris Eck, a spokesman for parent company First Energy, said crews were working to restore power to customers in Ohio and then would be shifted to help address Pennsylvania outages. “We'll mobilize everybody we have,” he said.
At 11 a.m. Monday, Duquesne Light reported about 3,600 of its customers remained without power, down from a peak of about 12,000 Sunday night. The company said most of those customers should have power restored by 8 p.m. Monday.
The National Weather Service reported wind gusts of up to 55 mph in Pittsburgh and 47 mph at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity. Winds reached up to 62 mph at Marion Center in Indiana County.
With such a major wind storm, Eck said, “You tend to have pretty widespread damage. The wind finds the weakest branches.”
The National Weather Service received reports after 8 p.m. of downed trees in Murrysville, Sewickley, Manor, Greensburg, and Hempfield, Salem and Derry townships.
Some structures were damaged.
At Irwin Plaza, a large sign that displays the name of the shopping center toppled onto a newer model Jeep Liberty parked there Sunday night. No injuries were reported.
Irwin firefighters said they were not dispatched for any other wind-related problems in the community, where gusts were reported at up to 35 mph.
A tree and wires also were reported down on vehicles in West Mifflin and Pittsburgh.
A National Weather Service high-wind advisory for several counties, including Westmoreland and Fayette, was cancelled by 11:30 a.m. Monday.
Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6622 or jhimler@tribweb.com.
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