Powerful storms swept across the region on Aug. 11, and left nearly 180,000 Duke Energy customers without power.
That number has dropped to about 88,000 by late afternoon Aug. 12. Crews are working day and night to restore power across Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, but it remains unclear when tens of thousands will be out of the dark, according to Duke Energy spokesman John Juech.
"This was the highest count of outages and dispersion of damage I've seen across this region in my time at Duke," said Juech.
Who is likely to regain power the fastest?
Duke Energy is prioritizing areas with the greatest number of customers, according to Juech. Outages are greatest in Hamilton County and the west side of Cincinnati.
But this storm has cut through a "wide slot" and affected a "lot of different
areas" said Juech. That means that it'll take longer to assess damages and reach customers. He also said that lightning storms this morning made restoration activity challenging.
Duke Energy prioritizes restoring power to critical infrastructure after storms, such as hospitals, sewage treatment plants and other facilities, before residential neighborhoods, Juech said.
When will remaining customers get their power back?
Juech could not provide an update on when power would be restored to remaining customers. He said crews are still assessing damage and an update would be available before the end of the workday Wednesday.
Juech said Duke has local crews and contractors working staggered shifts and overtime to restore power. Duke Energy crews from Indiana are also en route and, if conditions worsen throughout the week, crews may be pulled from other states as well.
How many people are still without power?
Duke Energy is keeping track of customers still without power on its outage map. According to the map, Hamilton County and Clermont County have the most outages. In Northern Kentucky, Kenton and Campbell face the greatest outages.
Outages peaked at 8 a.m. Aug. 12, when there were 2,266 outages throughout Greater Cincinnati.
Duke Energy spokesman told Enquirer media partner Fox19 that customers facing an outage can text “OUT” to 57801 to notify Duke Energy. Customers can also text REG to 57801* to get text alerts about outages in their area.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: About 88,000 still without power in Cincinnati area. What to know
