Update: Power Restored After Widespread Outage

Power has been restored in Gibsonia and Wexford after a widespread outage Tuesday night that affected thousands of Penn Power customers.

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 customers had their power 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 are still working to determine the exact cause of the outage. He noted that an examination of the equipment showed previous lightning 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 Pine-Richland residents who had hoped 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.