CENTERBURG — A summer storm packed with damaging winds, lightning, and heavy rains pounded parts of the county Thursday night. Storm damage was reported in the areas surrounding Centerburg, Fredericktown and Danville among others.
Just as the live music was bringing crowds to the main stage, dark clouds gathered in the eastern sky. As people watched the clouds form a bank and begin churning, many ran to their vehicles just as the skies began to dump heavy rain. The bluegrass band Death by Banjo kept playing as long as they could, but the weather refused to cooperate. When it became clear the storms would continue, the festival shut down early for the night around 8.
The Central Ohio Joint Fire District responded to several reports of downed power lines and trees around Centerburg according to Lt. Dan Rott. A small utility pole fire was put out by the department around 11:20 p.m.
Fredericktown Fire Chief Scott Mast said his department was also busy with calls regarding fallen power lines and damaged trees.
The Eastern Knox County Joint Fire District was called out to a house struck by lightning. According to Capt. Brian Durbin, the house sustained some damage, but did not catch fire.
At the height of the storm, thousands of area homes lost power. American Electric Power Ohio reported about 1,450 customers without power.
At 9:30 p.m., the Energy Cooperative Jelloway substation was damaged, and power was lost to several customers in that area. The power came back on to most homes after midnight as transmission was rerouted through Loudonville according Energy Co-op spokesman Brad Byrd.
He said just under 1,200 Energy Co-op customers were in the dark last night in Knox, Richland and Licking counties.
Byrd said about 80 customers in Richland and Knox counties remained without power this morning. “Some of the restoration will go into early afternoon because we’ve got some broken poles we need to fix,” Byrd explained.
Consolidated Electric Corp. reported all customers were back online as of press time.