ADAMS TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Mary Ellen Young spent part of Monday shoveling her driveway so a furnace repair technician could come fix the heat in her home.
“It’s not working 100%,” Young said. “We were attributing that to the electrical outage in some way, but I think it’s just a furnace problem.”
She thinks it’s not working properly after a power outage left nearly 9,000 First Energy customers in the dark — or in the partial dark — overnight
“Around midnight last night, we saw the power go on and off, and on and off, and on and off,” Jim Borczyk said. “Then, around 7:30, it went off completely. But we had brownouts just before that.”
First Energy told Channel 11’s Andrew Havranek that power outage — and what Borczyk and others in Butler County called brownouts — were caused by a high voltage line that fell in a remote area of the county.
“The lights would get real soft, go out, come right back on, and go off,” Borczyk said.
This impacted customers who live mostly in the Mars, Valencia and Adams Township areas. First Energy said about half of the customers who lost power got it back within an hour, but others didn’t get their power back until after 9 a.m.
That made for a cold morning for many people inside their homes.
“Cold. We were dressed up, bundled up in layers, had hats on, and it was cold!” Young said.
“We had the fireplace on, so it stayed reasonable, but it was cold; it was 12 [degrees] last night,” Borczyk added.
Both Borczyk and Young said they worry about the elderly on days like this, especially if they lose heat.
“Try and stay warm, stay bundled up, call a friend or a neighbor to just periodically check on ya,” Young said.
“Come on, warm weather! I’ve had enough! And go Steelers!” Borcyzk said.
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