The city utility department in Wapakoneta is trying to pinpoint the cause of a citywide power outage.
Meantime, thunderstorms and heavy downpours are being blamed for large scale power outages in Clinton County.
In Auglaize County, a vast majority — if not all — of Wapakoneta is without electric power. A police dispatcher said the problem affected the police and fire departments, but both are now operating on generator-supplied power.
Vikki Michalski, a spokeswoman with AEP Ohio, said there is “an issue with the substation” in Wapakoneta, and there is a crew working on that issue. The city is a customer of AEP Transmission, she said, and AEP Ohio has no residential or commercial customers in Auglaize County.
The Wapakoneta Police Department dispatcher we spoke with said city electric department crews are out, trying to restore power, but no one has been able to say what caused the outage. Calls to the police department began coming in about 8 p.m., the dispatcher said.
Wapakoneta Police Chief Russel Hunlock is asking residents to limit calls to the police department as emergencies only. The police department’s phone lines are flooded with outage reports, he said, and it could prevent an emergency from getting through.
In Clinton County, Dayton Power & Light’s online outage map is showing 682 customers without power. A company representative said crews have been dispatched to work on restoring electric service.
We will update this report as we get information. Stay with whio.com for breaking news.