Power outages dropping for Duquesne Light, West Penn Power, but thousands of customers remain in the dark

About 3,800 Westmoreland and Allegheny residents remained without electric service as of 9:20 a.m. Thursday, according to outage data from Duquesne Light and West Penn Power.

At the peak of the outages, there were more than 30,000 customers without power.

Duquesne Light blamed the outages on winds that reached 40 mph.

FirstEnergy spokesman Mike Grandillo said heavy winds forced trees and branches to knock down power lines. Crews will be working round the clock to restore power.

As of 9:20 a.m., Duquesne Light reported fewer than 2,000 outages in Allegheny County.

FirstEnergy reported less than 20 outages in Allegheny County at 9:20 a.m. and around 1,800 in Westmoreland County.

While there was no weather in the area Wednesday that the National Weather Service officially calls severe weather, wind gusts reached 30 to 40 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Rich Redmond said.

“Today, we had the remnants of Hurricane Beryl move to our west, and strong winds associated with what used to be Hurricane Beryl moved over top of our area,” Redmond said.

Winds were expected to die down around midnight, Redmond said, coming in around 15 to 20 mph over night and into Thursday. Temperatures are forecast to fall between 75 and 80 Thursday with low humidity.

“The biggest thing we’ll have to deal with the next day or so are clouds,” he said.

High heat and humidity are forecast to resume next week, Redmond said, which may lead to storms.

“Any time you build up this kind of heat and humidity, you’re always going to have that risk of storms,” he said.