About 3,200 residents of Butler, Valencia, Gibsonia, Saxonburg and surrounding areas will be in the dark Sunday.

Todd Meyers, West Penn Power spokesman, said the company has scheduled a power outage from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the latest, so crews can make several repairs to a substation that provides power.

Maria Slifer, a resident of Valencia, said she found out about the outage from a neighbor who received an automated call from West Penn Power. After confirming the information with staff members at West Penn Power, Slifer wrote a letter to its leadership to express her disdain — and worry — about the situation.

“This is 23 degree weather; they didn’t schedule this out well,” Slifer said. “This is a rural area, small property owners and farms. There are not subdivisions of cookie-cutter homes in this area who have gas furnaces and are serviced by public water.”

Meyers said the power company is trying to “kill three birds with one stone” through the planned outage. The biggest part of the project is replacing a wooden crossarm that holds equipment in the substation, which Meyers said is on the verge of failing and would take 30 hours to fix if it reached that point. Additionally, crews will be making other improvements to power lines, which Meyers said will be an upgrade for customers served by the substation.

“There is no good day for customers to be without power,” Meyers said. “This was the best window to try to get it done prior to the weather getting any colder.”

“We do hundreds of these a year, maybe not always in Butler, but across the West Penn Power footprint,” Meyers said. “Temperatures will be a bit chilly that morning, but it's not going to be a long outage.”

Virginia Mills, of Valencia, said she is most concerned about people who need power to heat their homes.

“It's going to be cold this Sunday. Why not do it last Sunday, it was nice and warm,” Mills said. “It's very inconvenient and they were not thinking of their customers.”

Temperatures during the scheduled outage time Sunday are predicted to be between 26 degrees and 39 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

Mills also said she is communicating with other residents in her area to find places that will have electricity Sunday, in case of emergency.

Meyers said the power company has been calling customers who will be affected by the outage for the past couple of weeks. He said the call system is automated and dials the phone number provided by the customer. So if someone has changed their number or disconnected their landline, the call may have not been received.

“I would recommend customers update their contact information if they haven’t recently,” Meyers said. “You can sign up to get a text message about outages.”

Slifer, who has a landline, said she is unsure of why she didn’t get a call about the outage.

Nevertheless, she said she is upset that the power company is putting her and many others in a situation that could leave them without heat during a cold period.

“Was it the expectation of First Energy/West Penn Power that the customers should have to leave their homes and find refuge elsewhere,” Slifer wrote in an email to West Penn Power. “This power outage should have been scheduled at the latest in September 2022 where heat and water is not severely impacted by winter temperatures.”