Residents of in hard-hit Pittsburgh neighborhood wait for power to come back on

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh residents were just starting to clean up Wednesday after a major storm caused damage all around the city.

“I don’t think it’s ever been this bad, even when we had that downburst 10 or 15 years ago,” Cathy Chmill told Channel 11.

Chmill is one of the thousands of people still without electricity in the City of Pittsburgh.

She lives in Morningside, one of the hardest hit neighborhoods. The entire area is without power, 24 hours after the storm rolled through.

“I have a gas stove, so I can heat things up, but I keep thinking about everything I have in my refrigerator that I’m going to have to throw out,” she said.

Mayor Gainey, city officials and Duquesne Light leadership held a joint news conference Wednesday, where they said it could be 5-7 days before the power is back on.

>>> Duquesne Light: Full restoration could take 5-7 days after ‘unprecedented’ storm in Pittsburgh area

“You heard a lot of people speak today about this being the worst storm that they’ve ever seen. We know that it’s going to take time, and we know that 200k people are without service,” Mayor Gainey told Channel 11.

Another issue the city is dealing with is that nearly 40 intersections don’t have working traffic signals because of the outages.

“We are receiving a lot of reports of dangerous driving through intersections, and we want to make sure everyone stays safe,” Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak said.

You can watch Mayor Gainey’s full press conference below.