Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.

With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. Zinc Oxide Lightning Arrester

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 570-724-2287  or email dtaylor@tiogapublishing.com .

As a current print subscriber, you receive 24/7 access to our website and online e-edition at no additional charge. All you have to do is activate your access. To activate digital access, you will need your account number. You can find your account number on any recent subscription notice or bill.

Sorry, no promotional deals were found matching that code.

Promotional Rates were found for your code.

Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading.

Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Welcome! We hope that you enjoy our free content.

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in or create an account to continue reading.

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribe purchase a subscription to continue reading.

Thank you for signing in! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.

Checking back? Since you viewed this item previously you can read it again.

Rain showers early with bright sunshine by the afternoon. High 64F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Higher wind gusts possible..

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 44F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.

Thousands of Penelec customers in and around the Mansfield area lost power in the middle of a cold snap Friday and Saturday. Some had their power restored relatively quickly; others were not so lucky.

With temperatures below zero Friday and Saturday, coupled with a strong northwest wind, conditions quickly turned life threatening for those who had to be out working in the cold and residents with no heat source.

According to Todd Meyers, Penelec spokesperson, at a high level, about 6,500 Penelec customers lost power Friday afternoon when high winds tore through Tioga County. “Notably, about 3,300 were in the Mansfield area and 1,000 or so in the Covington area around 5:30 p.m. Friday, when a tree located well off the right-of-way where we are permitted to trim, blew into one of our local electric lines and caused damage,” Meyers said.

“When that happened, a circuit breaker opened up in the nearby Mansfield substation to protect sensitive equipment such as transformers from the electrical issue caused by the tree contacting the line. Because the Mansfield and Covington substations are interconnected by electric lines, it also impacted equipment in the Covington substation. Fortunately, that outage lasted only 11 minutes for all of those customers after the substation circuit breakers were reset,” Meyers explained.

“A couple other outages lasted much longer due to lengthy repairs and the impacted poles being located in remote locations well off the roadway in the woods,” he added.

For Mansfield, an off-right-of-way tree damaged two poles, causing one to lean and breaking four cross arms at the top of the poles used to hang wire and other equipment. “The tree pulled the wire and hardware off poles as well. This occurred at 5:30 p.m. Friday and impacted about 150 Penelec customers. Their power was restored Saturday at about 8:30 p.m.,” he said.

A similar outage occurred in the Covington/Putnam township areas on Friday around 5 p.m. when a tree blew down and damaged two poles, pulling wire and other hardware off the poles. That impacted about 160 customers. Their power was restored on Saturday around 4 p.m., Meyers said

Additionally, there were multiple widespread outages caused by the high winds in the area.

“Local Penelec crews worked through the day and night battling bitter cold temperatures. Other Penelec line crews traveled from the Erie and Warren areas to pitch in and assist with repairs to get the lights back on,” Meyers said.

Penelec’s external affairs representative provided several updates to public officials which included the charts below with customer counts.

At 6:15 p.m. Friday, two outages occured in Sylvania borough, five in Morris Township, six in Putnam Township, 34 in Tioga Township, 42 in Bloss Township, 54 in Roseville borough, 55 in Hamilton Township, 61 in Wells Township, 66 in Rutland Township, 81 in Ward, 127 in Sullivan Township, 130 in Jackson, 221 in Blossburg borough, 354 in Covington Township, 656 in RIchmond Township, and 1,020 in Mansfield borough.

“Crews made significant progress Friday evening and overnight. The next update to officials went out Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. Many of the other customers were restored by 2 p.m. except for the two longer outages in Covington and Mansfield where customers were restored around 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. respectively,” Meyers said.

Mansfield borough manager Chris McGann said he was aware that Newtown was out for about 30 hours, Extension Street till late Saturday morning.

As for the rest of the borough, McGann said the main issue they dealt with was the pump station at the base of Newtown Hill was without power.

“If there is any silver lining to it, usually it is wastewater in the pit but because the power was out, there was none of that coming down the hill and all we got was ground water that came in through the pipes,” he said,

The other big issue, McGann said, was because of the cold weather “we had a number of water leaks in five locations in residential water meters.

“When it gets really cold any water sitting in the lines freezes and damages the meter. When the ice expands, it breaks the meter when they are outside or underneath trailers and in basements,” he said.

Another potentially dangerous problem, the traffic light downtown went out briefly, but was back on immediately because of a generator designed to kick in when power goes out, he said.

“That was fixed by Lecze, Williamsport, during the last power outage in November,” he said. “They found one component of the system that tells it to kick over to battery back-up and it had failed and they fixed it two days before this power outage. I could see from my apartment that the red light was working just fine.”

Most of the downtown was fully restored to power after a flicking on and off after only about a half hour, he added.

McGann also gave a shout out to the fire department for opening a warming station for those affected by the cold, which was up and running Saturday morning.

Jim Welch, Mansfield Fire Department chief, said fire department members John and Kim Andrus and their son, Eric, started the warming center at the firehall.

“We communicated that through emergency services and media sites that the firehall was open, and we had about 15 people end up coming through during the outage. The center was closed by 3 p.m. Saturday when most had their power restored,” he added.

McGann also noted that for about half an hour AT&T didn’t have service, and then on Saturday Blue Ridge Cable went out, too.

“Our water tank communicates with the municipal water service via cable so we were flying blind for about eight hours,” he added.

Call 911 immediately if you see a downed power line. Assume all downed lines are energized and dangerous. Downed power lines can energize the ground and nearby objects. Stay at least 30 feet away from any downed or low-hanging power line and any other object that could be energized.

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

Rain showers early with bright sunshine by the afternoon. High 64F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Higher wind gusts possible.

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 44F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.

Showers early, becoming a steady rain later in the day. High 54F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.

Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.

Error! There was an error processing your request.

Zero Sequence Current In Transformer Get the latest local and national news.