By Matt Fredmonsky, Mike Sever and Marci Piltz
Record-Courier staff writers
Portage County hunkered down in the dark and wind Sunday evening as the remnants of Hurricane Ike flattened trees and sparked fires from downed electrical lines.
Hundreds of calls flooded into emergency dispatch centers as police, fire and service crews scrambled to keep up with an expanding list of weather-related emergencies.
Power outages swept areas of Kent, the Village of Sugar Bush Knolls, Streetsboro, Palmyra Township and Ravenna.
Ohio Edison spokesperson Robbin Patton said 24,000 customers in Portage County were out of power as of 9:15 p.m. Sunday.
Patton said 5,500 of those were in Kent, 4,900 in Ravenna, and 2,300 each in Garrettsville and Streetsboro. The rest were scattered around the county.
Ohio Edison repair work to continue with Tuesday as the earliest for all power to be restored, Patton said.
Power-less traffic signals, like the one pictured at the intersection of East Main Street and Lincoln Street in Kent, left area drivers to negotiate four-way stops throughout the county.
Kent Fire Chief James Williams said a number of areas in Kent were hit hard by the storm, but the Lincoln Street area seemed to bear the brunt of the damage.
"We've got wires down all over town," Williams said. "I would imagine, given the volume of calls from everywhere else in the county, it's likely Ohio Edison will take the rest of the night to get to some of these areas and into the morning. The power's going to be out for a while."
Homes and businesses were dark spanning from downtown Kent near DePeyster Street east to the Sheetz gas station in Franklin Township. .
The Kent State University Campus was a beacon of light in the surrounding darkness. There were no power outages reported on campus, according to a police department spokesperson. The department did issue a weather alert to stay indoors and shut windows, the spokesperson said.
A high-wind advisory had been issued early Sunday for Portage County by the National Weather Service, but the advisory was upgraded to a warning by late afternoon and did not expire until early this morning.
The sheer number of calls Sunday evening lead to confusion for some emergency personnel. In one case, crews responded to an address for the second time after one department had already addressed the emergency and taped off the area.
The Ravenna Township fire department responded to a transformer fire at Village Estates mobile home park, 3022 S.R. 59, shortly before 7 p.m. Wires were reported down on a house on South Riddle Street in Ravenna, and Ravenna fire personnel responded to a sparking transformer on Cleveland Road. Power was out at the Cotton Corners intersection except for the traffic light.
Road crews in Suffield and Randolph townships responded to clear trees from roadways. Residents with chain saws responded to one call to aid in removing the storm debris.
Hazen Road in Ravenna was closed after a large tree fell in the roadway, and a large tree fell onto the roadway at the intersection of West Riddle Avenue and Grant Street. The tree fell at the roots, tearing up a section of sidewalk and briefly blocking the roadway there. A large tree also fell in the 400 block of West Main Street, blocking the roadway.
In Rootstown, a transformer fire was reported on Tallmadge Road and at the Valleys Hills Mobile Home Park on Sandy Lake Road.
Trees were reported down on houses, causing structural damage, on Berry Road in Charlestown and in the 900 block of West Main Street in Kent.
Fire departments throughout the county were busy all night, including a temporary activation of the Portage County Water Rescue Team for a report of two missing boaters on Lake Milton. The team was canceled a short time later without responding to the scene.
Rain was expected overnight, and today's temperatures are predicted to be in the mid-60s, with the potential for showers early this morning as Ike continues to break up over the region.