Call it “Ike Lite.”

While not the hurricane that devastated the nation’s Gulf Coast on Saturday, high winds — some with gusts of 80 mph — tore through Butler County on Sunday, downing trees and utility lines and causing massive power outages.

Most distressing to many, the blackout meant no television — meaning fans were unable to watch the NBC broadcast of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Cleveland Browns game.

No doubt, food also had to be chucked out of refrigerators and freezers after hours with no power.

<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE55276915.MOV " width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>By this morning, the widespread power outages caused many schools to delay the start of classes by two hours and forced others to close for the day.The county’s three power companies, Allegheny Power, Penn Power and Central Electric Cooperative, are reporting tens of thousands of homes without service.And don’t expect service to be restored any time soon, according to company officials. Some homeowners and renters could be without power until Tuesday.“Butler County was the hardest hit of our service area,” said Allegheny Power spokeswoman Janice Lantz. “We have regular crews out since the first outages, and we’ll be redeploying crews from our four-state area.”Those additional crews from within Pennsylvania, as well as West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland, were to arrive by this afternoon, Lantz said.About 24,000 Allegheny Power customers in Butler County were without power at the peak of the outages between 8 and 9 p.m.By 8 a.m. today, about 5,000 of those customers had power restored, Lantz said.“Most of the outages were in Butler proper,” she said, “but we also had calls from the southern portion of Butler County that we cover, like Chicora, East Butler, Sarver, Valencia, those areas.”Some 15,000 northern Butler County customers served by Parker-headquartered Central Electric Cooperative lost power because of the wind storm, said utility spokeswoman Christina O’Donnell.About 10,000 customers remained without service by 8:30 a.m.“Power will not be fully restored,” she warned, “until at least Tuesday.It might be until Wednesday before Penn Power customers have electric service again.Company spokesman Bart Spagnola said 23,500 Butler County customers lost power.Crews worked all night to restore power, he said. But, there are trees uprooted, bringing down wires. Poles are broken. And substations are out.The outages are scattered across the area Penn Power serves, including Mars, Zelienople and Cranberry Township.To relieve the crews working today, Spagnola said workers from the eastern part of the state will travel here.Still he doesn’t expect to know the full extent of the damage until this evening.The downed lines caused major headaches for street departments and morning commuters, some who were forced to find alternate routes to work.“It’s real bad,” said Ralph Graham, supervisor of Butler’s street department. “A number of streets are blocked, and that’s mainly because of the wires that are down.”Roads closed in the city from Sunday night past rush hour this morning were East Fulton Street, the 500 block of East Pearl Street, Fourth Street, North McKean Street at East Pearl Street, South Main Street hill and Chestnut Street Extension.“Our hands are tied,” Graham said about 8:10 a.m., referring to the four-man street department. “We’re cleaning up the debris, but until Allegheny Power crews come in and remove the line, we can’t reopen the roads.”Volunteer firefighters were joining power company crews and street department workers through the night and into the morning.“We got over 40 calls (Sunday) night,” said Chief Gary Cooper of the Saxonburg Volunteer Fire Company. “They kept coming and coming.”Most of the calls, like those handled by virtually every department in the county, were for downed trees and live wires.Numerous roads throughout the county were closed because of trees, branches, utility poles and unidentified metal objects in the way.“We got calls for trees into houses, trees into cars, trees on roads,” said Chief Mark Lauer of the Unionville Volunteer Fire Department. “Other calls were for poles on fire and poles snapped off.”Firefighters by 7 a.m. were still responding to reports of utility pole and transformer fires.Just two or three hours after dawn was too soon to assess the full scope of damage, but preliminary findings were not good.“There’s a lot of damage out there,” said Lauer, who also is Center Township’s public works director. He noted this was the worst wind storm he’s seen since the tornado that touched down in 1985.The Butler School District, which operated under a two-hour delay, was without power at four schools and debris was scattered at each one, an official said.The Moniteau School District also said debris was a problem and closed for the day.Slippery Rock School District also closed schools today.A large oak tree fell at the main campus of Butler County Community College, breaking through the Social Sciences Building. Susan Changnon, spokeswoman, said the tree brought down light fixtures and the ceiling. Repairs were under way this morning.In Muddy Creek Township, Moraine State Park lost power about 10 p.m. and limbs were down everywhere. Obie Derr, park manager, said damage was concentrated on the North Shore where trees crossed roads and bike trails.City police likewise had scattered reports of trees and wires down in the city. Traffic lights at Hansen Avenue and New Castle Road and elsewhere were dark. At 8 a.m., though, there were no traffic control problems reported, police said.Police used a generator overnight at the station and continued to use it this morning.