By Marci Piltz,

Matt Fredmonsky

and Miles Jung-Kilbreath

Record-Courier staff writers

Thousands of Portage County residents remained in the dark Monday as electrical crews scrambled to restore power to more than 2 million Ohioans following Sunday's storm.

Some without electricity might find themselves without power for a few days.

"We have all our available crews working in the affected areas and they will be working through the night," said Robin Patton, spokeswoman for First Energy. "We're looking at having all customers restored by Thursday, of course with some regaining power before then. There's just such widespread damage it will take our crews several days to restore power to everyone."

Winds reached nearly 60 mph during the storm, which roared into the Portage area Sunday afternoon in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, leaving behind a wake of downed branches, limbs, electrical wires and uprooted trees.

More than 32,000 Portage County residents lost power during the height of the storm. By 4 p.m. Monday, power had been restored to about 13,000 customers, Patton said.

Portions of Kent, Ravenna and Streetsboro were among the areas without power Monday.

The Streetsboro Municipal Building closed because it didn't have power, although emergency generators allowed the police and fire departments to remain open. Caroline Kremer, clerk of council, said it is impossible to conduct city business without computers. The finance committee meeting that had been set for Monday has been postponed until Sept. 22.

Around 2,300 residents in the eastern side of Streetsboro were left without power, Patton said.

Streetsboro Mayor Tom Wagner said the traffic signals at the intersection of S.R. 14 and S.R. 43 are working again after being knocked out at 7:30 p.m. Sunday for about 14 hours. Frost Road was closed from Page Road to Elliman Road because of downed power lines since the evening of Sept. 14, according to Service Director Bill Miller.

Nearly all of Randolph was without power Monday, but that didn't stop Postmaster Gail Spears from holding regular business hours.

"The post office is always open," she said from the dark Randolph Post Office on Waterloo Road. "I can still sell stamps, collect mail, I just can't weigh anything without a generator hooked up."

Spears said she had a generator running earlier Monday, but around 2 p.m. it was picked up. "They'll bring it back tomorrow if I need it," she said.

Several roads in the township remained closed because of downed wires and trees, including a portion of S.R. 44 and a section of Hartville Road.

In Ravenna, North Sycamore Street was closed as wires draped the roadway, barely supported by a pole that had snapped in half. Several other downed trees were keeping two city service crews as well as three hired tree companies busy, said Service Director Don Kainrad.

"We have not been given any kind of time frame as to when all power will be restored," he said.

Part of Highland Avenue also was closed Monday morning because of a large tree downed near the Diamond Street intersection.

Only one street remained closed in Kent Monday afternoon, and that was Munroe Falls Road in the Middlebury Road neighborhood.

Crews in Kent were busy Monday picking up branches knocked down by Sunday's wind storm. The city will pick up bagged leaves, but residents with leaf debris must contact the city service department to request the leaf pick-up by calling 330-678-8108.

Kent Police Lt. John Altomare said the department's dispatchers were fielding numerous calls from residents who were asking when power could be restored to sections of the city where electrical lines were down.

Altomare said the department was referring residents to their power suppliers for black-out information.

"Of course, we don't know," Altomare said. "But we haven't had any other situations or problems as far as the police department is concerned."

Windham Fire Chief Clarence Simpson and two other firefighters suffered minor injuries Sunday night when a tree limb fell on them on Silica Sand Road.

"We were cutting up a tree branch that had already fell off when another one fell and hit the three of us," he said. "We just suffered minor injuries."

Simpson said the limb was about 12 inches in diameter and approximately 10 feet long.

Jack Hogue, Kent's central maintenance department manager, said his crews are swamped trying to clean up storm debris.

"We haven't even touched the problems we have, but we're working at them," Hogue said. "Instead of waiting until our annual brush collection program in October we're going to be out now picking up storm damage at the curb because we know we're going to have a lot of it."

After working this week, city crews will return to neighborhoods again in the first week of October to conduct the regular brush collection program. Residents also can drop off leaves and brush at the city's yard waste collection site at Plum Creek Park on Cherry Street.

In Tallmadge, police reopened Howe Road Monday afternoon. East Howe Road, by Howe Road Park, had been closed earlier because of downed trees and power lines.

S.R. 261 (Northeast Avenue) was still closed northeast of Howe Road heading into Kent, according to police. A semi-truck that was stuck on the road has been removed, but Ohio Edison was still addressing downed power lines there.

Patton said crews from First Energy's other companies, including Toledo Edison, Met-Ed, Jersey Central Power and Light and Penn Power, also will be sending crews to the area to assist. First Energy crews that had been sent to Texas and Louisiana to assist with storm clean-up from Hurricane Ike are being recalled to Ohio, she added.

Joe Richardson, media relations manager for Time Warner Cable, said the company is working to get cable restored to its customers.

"Power outages are the biggest factor impacting our cable service," he said. "At the present time, we are restoring cable to areas that have power. If we find out communities have power restored, we're going back out to make sure they have cable and internet service."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.