DaytonDailyNews.com

UPDATED: 8:27 a.m.

Dayton Power & Light reported that 125,000 customers were without power as of Wednesday morning, Sept. 17, down from about 180,000 one day earlier.

Eight new line repair crews from Chicago were added Wednesday, making about 900 people working in the field on repairs.

Water plants, wastewater treatment facilities, nursing homes, urgent-care centers, fire-police communications, and electrical circuits that serve the largest numbers of residential customers are priorities in restoring electricity to those who lost power in Sunday's high winds, according to Dayton Power & Light Co.

The power restoration is a fluid process based on the availability of line repair crews and which service circuits sustained the most damage, DP&L spokesman Tom Tatham said Tuesday, DP&L is working with local governments to identify other priorities for having electric service restored, he said.

In Darke County, Greenville Fire Chief Mark Wolf said DP&L crews were responsive Sunday, but he had not seen repair crews in his area on Monday and Tuesday. About 100 homes there remained without power, he said.

"We just haven't seen a presence here since Sunday evening," Wolf said.

Duke Energy, the neighboring utility to the south, and DP&L said they expect it will take until this weekend to restore all customers who lost electric service. The most time-consuming repairs will be those involving heavily damaged equipment or connections serving individual customers, the companies said.

Both utilities are getting help from out-of-state repair crews to speed up the repairs.

Duke Energy's goal was to have 50 percent of its customers restored by the end of the day Tuesday and 85 percent by the end of Wednesday, Duke spokeswoman Kathy Meinke said. With hospitals now reconnected, the major priorities include reconnecting schools and circuits that serve the greatest numbers of customers, Meinke said.

About 40 percent of DP&L's customers still awaited restoration of service Tuesday, Tatham said.

Other major utilities in the region, including Duke Energy and American Electric Power which serves the Columbus area and southeast Ohio, offer the public specific projections, by telephone or Web site, about when customers in given areas can expect to have their service restored.

DP&L lacks the technology to do that, Tatham said.

Often, residents have been able to determine where power has been restored by "driving around," Tatham said.

"Certainly, they have been resourceful up to this point," he said. "We understand that it's going to be difficult."

Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer said he has been in contact with DP&L about the repair schedule, but needs to know more about when each area is to be reconnected. That would help the sheriff's office deploy patrol officers accordingly to deter criminals who might try to loot in areas still without electric service, Plummer said Tuesday.

DP&L relies on information that local governments relay about reconnect priorities, Tatham said.

"As far as identifying priorities down to a neighborhood, that would be difficult to do," Tatham said.

Out-of-state crews helping DPL

Dayton Power & Light Co. spokeswoman Mary Beth Weaver said that out-of-state line clearance crews had joined local workers by Tuesday morning to deal with power outages.

"We've been able to triple the size of our crews," Weaver said. "We're going to put on a really big push today to restore as much as we can."

Line clearance crews will remove damaged branches and trees to let line repair crews make the actual repairs to restore power. Weaver said and extra 100 line clearance crews are starting work today.

New repair crews arrived Tuesday also, including 10 from northern Indiana, Weaver said. DP&L has about 300 people at a time working on repairs and support for repair teams 24 hours a day, she said.

The Montgomery County Fairgrounds parking lot was crowded with trucks from Asplundh and Lewis Tree Services Tuesday morning, and the workers said they had driven their bucket trucks and other equipment from all over the country.

They said they expect to be doing 16-hour shifts for the next few days. "This is normal for us," said Jolito Mendoza, part of a Spanish-speaking Lewis crew from New Jersey. "We travel a lot. Any emergency, and we're right there."

Restoration of power to all customers may not happen until the coming weekend — if not longer, officials with Dayton Power and Light Co. said.

"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.

High-voltage power lines remain concern

But safety remains paramount for crews and residents, which can slow the work of repairing high-voltage lines, said Scott Kelly, DP&L senior vice president of service operations.

"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.