Utility companies continued work to restore power to Butler County residents following severe wind and storm damage Sunday night into Monday morning.

High winds from Sunday evening into the morning of Monday, Dec. 30 left thousands of Butler County residents without power, including some who may not get it back until Tuesday, Dec. 31, in the evening.

As of 3 p.m. Monday, Dec. 30, Central Electric Cooperative had returned power to all but four customers in Butler County.

Meanwhile, 2,102 West Penn Power customers in Butler County remained without power by 3 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., that number was down to 563.

Areas such as Buffalo, Donegal, Mercer, Oakland, Slippery Rock and Worth townships still had several dozens of power outages by Monday evening.

Todd Meyers, spokesperson with West Penn Power, said at the peak of outages following the weather event, there were around 25,000 West Penn Power customers in Butler and beyond who lost power. The Butler Eagle reported Monday morning the Butler total was around 2,700.

A number of things have created a tough situation for crews trying to restore power more difficult, such as wet soil due to recent rain and snow.

“When you think about what causes power outages it’s wind, by and large, that blows branches or trees into power lines. That can bring power lines down and can cause damage to the top of the poles, it sometimes breaks the poles,” Meyers said. “That’s what your generally seeing. Distinguishing from that, when you get wind like today, especially when soil is damp from rain, things are still soft and it adds a level of difficulty.”

Meyers said West Penn did not start seeing outages until later in the evening, with overnight outages and even some into Monday morning due to storm damage in some neighborhoods.

Meyers said in addition to West Penn bringing its crews out Monday morning to assess damage, the company also brought out additional crews that work for FirstEnergy in the eastern part of state to help West Penn Power restore power here. Crews will work around the clock, with shifts 16 hours on and 8 hours off, until customers are restored.

Larry Shuler, with the Butler city fire department, said the only two weather related calls they received Monday within city limits were for tree branches falling on wires, both on McKinley Avenue. However, other fire departments around Butler County responded to a number of calls regarding downed wires and trees blocking roads.

Butler County 911 said it received 46 reports of downed power lines from Sunday evening into Monday morning.