More than 500 still without power in the Valley

Although FirstEnergy has made considerable progress in whittling down the number of Valley power outages caused by Tuesday night’s storm, some homes and businesses could still be without electricity until late Saturday.

By Friday morning, power had been restored to all but 583 of the 26,000 FirstEnergy customers left in the dark by strong winds.

Trumbull County still has 521 outages.  The utility says it could be 11 p.m. Saturday before some people get their electricity back.

That’s the same restoration time for people living in Greene and Jefferson Townships in Mercer County where 48 homes were still in the dark early Friday.

Only 14 outages remain in Mahoning County.

FirstEnergy issued a statement saying the lengthy time it takes to make repairs is due to hundreds of broken poles and cross-arms, downed power lines, and fallen trees.