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East Palestine officials were in the dark during recent power outage

EAST PALESTINE–Better communication is needed when there is a weather emergency like the one that affected most of the county on Nov. 16, village officials say.

Councilman DJ Yokley said he was disappointed that he and other village officials were unable to answer questions from the public.

“There was a lot of finger pointing going on as to why we didn’t have any answers. We were getting the same things that everyone else was getting,” he said.

Residents in the village were among the more than 40,000 throughout the county affected by a power outage caused by an ice and snow storm that happened over two days, with local officials declaring the village in a state of emergency on Nov. 16.

East Palestine and Unity Township were among the most affected, with the majority of the village in the dark because of the outage.

FirstEnergy had the majority of power restored to county residents as of 8 p.m. on Nov. 17, but estimated that power would be fully restored by 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 18.

Acting Mayor Alan Cohen said it was difficult for village officials to get an appropriate response from Ohio Edison (also known as FirstEnergy).

“I don’t know if it was possible to get a better response from them. There has to be a better way to get a response from them as to the length of time we are going to be in an emergency,” he said.

Councilman Doug Simpson said he was on the phone with Ohio Edison for 45 minutes before he got any response, and that was only that the outage was due to the power lines being down because of fallen trees.

Officials were especially disappointed with the 11:30 p.m. time frame the company provided for complete power restoration since it resulted in village crews working several overtime hours.

“They are doing some real damage to communities by picking that worst case scenario,” Cohen said, adding that first responders need to know more information.

He added that the village should establish one person with the company that can be called to be given up-to-date information that won’t necessarily be released to the general public right away, but at least the local first responders.

Monteleone said he would ask the company about that, and also said that he is going to ask the company for a reimbursement of the village’s roughly $4,000 to $5,000 in overtime costs.

He said he is not sure if the company is able to do that, but wanted to see if that was a possibility.

“I do think they do that for damage control,” Monteleone said of providing the 11:30 p.m. estimate for when power would be restored.

He added that the village does have an emergency management plan, but agreed improvements could help.

He said that while the local school was able to create enough power to light the building, it could not heat the building.

“We checked all the churches and that is why we ended up with our fire department, New Waterford and Negley, because they were the only ones that had heat,” he said.

Cohen said the village needs to find out which locations have access to available generators or torpedo heaters are so that the village can be better prepared for the next situation.

“We need to educate people on how and where to go when something happens like this. There is a possibility this could happen again — a very good one with the snow we are looking at,” Yokley said.

Monteleone said there is a possibility of getting grants for generators for buildings.

Council approved setting a safety committee meeting at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 14 to discuss the matter.

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