Updated: Cause Still Unknown for Widespread Outage Across Cranberry, Surrounding Areas

Cranberry Township Volunteer Fire Company responded to at least a dozen calls and assisted Adams Area Fire Department with a small fire at the restaurant on Route 228 after widespread power outages Tuesday evening left 42,000 Penn Power customers from Wexford to Cranberry without electricity.

As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, Penn Power Spokesman Mark Durbin said power had been restored to all except two homes located close the source of the power outage near Zelienople. He said a downed transmission line was to blame for the loss of power, which started around 7:20 p.m.

By 11 p.m., most of the power in the Cranberry Township area had been restored. Customers in the North Hills and Franklin Park areas remained without electricity overnight, which caused the North Allegheny School District to operate on a two-hour delay Wednesday morning.   

Durbin said crews still are working to determine the exact cause of the outage. He noted that an examination of the equipment showed previous lightening strikes, which may have contributed over time to Tuesday's line failure.

"Our system is  a very robust system that is designed to be out in the elements 365 days a year," he said. "Once in a while there’s an issue like we had last night and we get that taken care of as quickly as we can."

At one point Tuesday evening, a system outage map on Penn Power’s website estimated more than 10,000 homes were without power in Cranberry, and between 5,000 and 10,000 people were without power in Wexford and Mars. Power outages also were reported in Gibsonia, Seven Fields, Valencia, Zelienople, Bradford Woods, and Sewickley.

The outage came at a particularly bad time for Cranberry residents hoping to catch Pittsburgh Steeler Hines Ward shimmy his way to victory with partner Kym Johnson on "Dancing With the Stars."  

If you didn't catch it (SPOILER ALERT!), Ward won the coveted Mirrorball Trophy Tuesday night.

Fortunately reader Deb Wilson, who had electricity at her home in Harmony, kept fans updated on Ward's progress through the Cranberry Patch facebook page. 

Along with units from Harmony, Zelienople, and Callery, Cranberry firefighters also responded to the Springfield Grille after a rooftop air conditioning unit caught fire. The fire did not cause any major damage to the restaurant, although it did fill the restaurant with smoke, Cranberry firefighters said.

Shortly after the power went out, officials set up an emergency operations center at Cranberry Township’s municipal building on Rochester Road, Kovac said. The township’s public works crews also immediately set out to help restore power in the area, according to Kovac.

“The township was on the ball,” he said. 

Members of the company’s fire police and the Cranberry Township police department directed traffic at major intersections along Route 19 and Route 228 until power to the signals was restored through either a back-up system or a generator.

Fire Company President Bruce Hezlep said the four-hours outage caused no injuries or accidents.

The township’s fire trucks were in and out of the station throughout the outage. Kovac said volunteers spent most of the night responding to automatic fire alarms that were triggered as the power was restored.

“There was nothing major that we responded to,” he said. 

Check back with Patch for more details.