DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — Dayton Power & Light crews restored power to another 8,000 by Saturday night, Sept. 20, bringing the number of households and businesses without electricity down to 51,000, according to DP&L spokesman Tom Tatham.

Of those remaining in the dark, 37,000 of them were in Montgomery County; 6,500 in Greene County; 2,500 in Preble County; 650 in Miami County and 800 in Warren County.

Tatham said that as outages are cleared in some of the northern counties served by DP&L, it will free repair crews to concentrate more in the urban centers of Montgomery County.

"By saying that, we're not indicating we were working in the northern counties and not in the center city," Tatham said. "We've been working everywhere all along, but we're getting the opportunity now to focus in more on some areas."

The DP&L Web site said repair efforts this weekend are focused on larger outages in communities including Brookville, Centerville, East Dayton, Eaton, Fairborn, Kettering, Miamisburg, Oakwood, Urbana, Vandalia, Washington Court House, Waynesville, West Dayton and Xenia.

By today, DP&L plans to have service restored to 90 percent of the more than 300,000 customers impacted by the wind storm.

The pace of restorations are slower now that crews are focusing on branches that each serve a smaller number of customers.

Tatham said 216 additional linemen joined DP&L work crews on Saturday bringing the total number of personnel working on repairs to about 1,500. The workforce was drawn from 10 states, he said.

Gene Burnette, who retired as DP&L's troubleshooting crews, was among the contractors working to restore power in Oakwood on Saturday. "I've been working here two days, and I've only run into one person who was kind of irate," Burnette said.

Oakwood City Manager Norbert Klopsch met with Burnette and other DP&L work coordinators Saturday, and Klopsch said he was proud of how Oakwood residents dealt with the power outage situation.

He said Oakwood is packed with old growth trees, and 80 to 90 percent of the city lost power as the storms of last Sunday threw branches and whole trees into transmission lines.

"People who have been without electricity for almost a week now are anxious, of course," Klopsch said.

Burnette projected Oakwood's outages would be close to zero by 10 p.m. Sunday.

Southern counties

Duke Energy, which provides electrical service to homes and businesses south of Dayton, had 1.2 million customers lose power this week. As of Saturday night, the number still waiting for repairs was down to 63,000.

Butler County, which had more than 213,000 households without power at one point, still had 10,000 in the dark Saturday evening.

Duke spokeswoman Kathy Meinke said the company expects to have power restored to all its customers by the end of the day today.

Pockets without power

Frustration is looming for those who are in isolated pockets without power.

Flo Thompson of Beavercreek and Gary Turnipseed of Xenia are in that boat, and say the biggest problem is no communication with DP&L and a lack of follow-up when there is.

Thompson said she was assured by DP&L after an outage about five years ago that her neighborhood, Apple Valley Estates, would be put on a priority list because the people there are on wells. The neighborhood had put together a petition for priority status because loss of power leaves them without water.

But Thompson said she's being told now by DP&L representatives that nobody knew that there were people in Beavercreek on wells.

"Water is really a problem and people can't even flush their toilets," Thompson said. "But DP&L says they don't know anything about it and we haven't seen a truck back here yet."

Turnipseed said he is one of three homes without power in a Xenia neighborhood that's been restored since Monday. He said he was patient until Friday, when a supervisor who talked to him didn't call back as promised.

Turnipseed said there is a downed line and it is still undetermined if it is live, because nobody has been out to look at it yet.

"I feel like we got left out in the alley to die," Turnipseed said. "There's a safety issue and there isn't one single person in six days that can assess it? I know it's a small number. But what happens to that small number when everybody else gets their power back? Are we going to be forgotten?"

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2395 or jcummings@DaytonDailyNews.com.