Pullman Center along Hansen Avenue is a city of trailers, lift trucks and hard-hatted workers scurrying from place to place, as Allegheny Power has turned the parking lot of Jo-Ann Fabrics into a staging area for its repair efforts.

"We are looking for the areas where we can bring the most customers online first, and as we finish other restoration projects, we will be bringing in additional crews," Janice Lantz, a spokesperson for Allegheny Power, said today.

She said restoration crews also must prioritize transmission sites before distribution ones and take into account locations of hospitals, fire stations, police and other utilities.

A typical storm causes about two to three dozen individual cases of downed lines or outages. Sunday's events heaped more than 500 cases on the utility, Lantz said.

Allegheny Power sent about 80 line crews to the Gulf states to repair the devastation caused by Hurricane Ike, according to Lantz. Two crews were from Butler County, but the vast majority hailed from Virginia and Maryland. Most of the crews are in Louisville, Ky.

"That was really for the greater good, and we've had workers we could bring into Pennsylvania, so it is not affecting our restoration effort here," Lantz said.