DaytonDailyNews.com

Restoration of power to all customers affected by the weekend's severe wind storm may not happen until the coming weekend — if not longer, officials with Dayton Power and Light Co. said Monday Sept. 15.

"We will have crews working 7 by 24 well through the next weekend bringing customers back online," said Paul Barbas, chief executive of DPL Inc., which owns Dayton Power and Light Co.

More than 200,000 DP&L customers in the company's 24-county service area were without power on Monday afternoon, officials said in a press conference in the company's service operations headquarters on Dryden Road. Probably 60-70 percent of those customers are in Montgomery and Greene counties, company officials said.

"This is an unprecedented event in our service territory," said Bryce Nickel, DP&L vice president of operations. "I've been working for DP&L for almost 30 years. I've never seen anything half this size."

Power has been restored to 100,000 of the company's more than 500,000 customers, Nickel said. The company's first priorities are hospitals, water service installations and emergency services providers. As power is restored to those entities, power also flows back to nearby residential customers, said Scott Kelly, DP&L senior vice president of service operations.

But safety remains paramount for crews and residents, which can slow the work of repairing high-voltage lines, Kelly said.

"There are power lines that are down throughout our area; there are power lines down we have not been to yet," Kelly said.

If residents see lines down, they are asked to assume that the lines are electrical and live, Barbas said. He asked residents and motorists to stay clear of downed lines.

Complicating restoration work are three factors: the severity of the damage caused by wind gusts that reached nearly 70 mph locally, how far that damage has spread through the company's service region and the fact that crews and resources had been deployed elsewhere to help Texas cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike last weekend.

"Resources across the country are stretched," Nickel said.

Now, DP&L contractors who had been sent south have been called back to the Dayton area, and they are expected to arrive late Tuesday. Line clearance crews and contractors from the Lewis Co. and Alplundh Co. in Pennsylvania and New York also are expected to arrive Tuesday. And assistance is expected from the Northern Indiana Public Service Co., too.

The company also is relying on help from its "mutual assistance group," a group of "neighboring" utility companies in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, DP&L officials said.

"We've been on the phone with them ever since these high winds came through the area," Nickel said.

Crews typically work for 16 hours, rest for 8, then work for 16 more, he said. The company expects that to continue through the weekend.

DP&L officials said they could not offer a county-by-county breakdown on how many customers are dealing with outages.

Water safety

So far there is no threat of water contamination, according to Heather Lauer, spokeswoman for the Ohio EPA. At least, "not with the drinking systems," she said.

"There may be some contact issues if the wastewater treatment plants have to bypass some of their treatment systems," Lauer said.

The Ohio EPA will have to wait until Tuesday, Sept. 16 before they will know of any wastewater treatment plants that have bypassed, Lauer said.

"Obviously, if there is untreated sewage going into a stream, then you don't want to have contact with that water," Lauer said. "At this point, I don't know if there are any (wastewater treatment plants) that are off-line."

The Ohio EPA is encouraging residents to contact their city officials if they have questions about the water systems.

Water conservation restrictions were lifted in southern Montgomery County as of 4:50 p.m. and the county set up an Emergency Management Citizen Information Line to assist residents.

The phone number is (937) 225-6217.

Cable television

Time Warner Cable crews will work to restore service to affected Dayton-area customers by following Dayton Power & Light crews as they restore service in the area, said Pam McDonald, a spokeswoman for Time Warner's Cincinnati office.

She cautioned that once power is restored, there may be a lag to restoration of cable service, depending on damage to cable lines and infrastructure around homes. She said there is no way to predict when all cable customers will once again see service.

Gas service

However, there was no interruption to natural gas service to some 318,000 Vectren customers in the Dayton area, said Chase Kelley, a spokeswoman for Evansville, Ind.-based Vectren.

"Gas leak-wise, it looks pretty good," Kelley said.