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Many remain without power following one of the most impactful storms in 20 years

By WHIO Staff
By WHIO Staff

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — The remnants of Hurricane Helene knocked out power for over 100,000 people across the Miami Valley late last week and some are still waiting for the power to be restored.

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A spokesperson for AES Ohio said Helene was one of the 10 most impactful storms in their coverage area in the last 20 years. They’ve been working for days to restore power and are not working on outages impacting single homes, like Neil Reinsmoen’s.

Reinsmoen said the lights went out on Friday afternoon.

“When the strong wind came, the trees fell,” he said. “They broke off, hit my power line, hit my gazebo, hit my roof.”

He said he appreciates the work of AES Ohio crews working to get the power back on for so many across the Miami Valley.

“You know, you think about the linemen and women out there working, you know, they’re in inclement weather,” he said. “They’re working 24/7, you know, they need a break as well. So whenever they get here, great. But it is still frustrating.”

As reported on News Center 7 at 6:00, AES Ohio said they were prioritizing large outages. Now that those have been restored, they’re down to fixing one-off outages, the repairs that impact single homes like Reinsmoen’s.

As of 3:00 p.m., AES Ohio said it had 97 outages left from Friday’s remnants of Helene impacting 258 customers. At that same time, the company said it had 262 outages that happened over the weekend impacting another 766 customers.

Reinsmoens said he was out of his home for six months after the Memorial Day tornado outbreak slammed his block in Beavercreek. So now, there’s a lot to be said for the power of gratitude.

“Yeah, I mean compared to the tornado, this is minor,” he said. “You know, it’s been an inconvenience.”

AES Ohio hopes to have all the outages from Friday restored by 11 p.m. on Wednesday. They’re still working on restoration times for the ones that came in over the weekend.

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