High Winds Cause Power Outages Around Centre County

Update: As of 10 p.m. on Saturday, 4,071 West Penn customers in Centre County were without power. That included 1,041 in Ferguson Township, 819 in State College, 954 in Snow Shoe Township and 365 in Snow Shoe Borough.

Burnside, College, Potter and Rush townships each had more than 100 customers with outages.

No estimated time of restoration was available. See outages.firstenergycorp.com/pa.html for updates.

More than 200,000 electricity customers statewide were without power on Saturday night, according to poweroutage.us.

A wind advisory remained in effect until 2 a.m. on Sunday for Centre County and most of central Pennsylvania.

Original story:

Thousands of people in Centre County were without power on Saturday afternoon as intense winds caused downed electrical lines.

As of 4 p.m., West Penn Power reported outages affecting 6,784 customers in the county. The most were in Ferguson Township, where 1,789 households and businesses were affected, and College Township, which had 1,178 outages. Elsewhere in the Centre Region State College had 877 affected customers, Patton Township had 217 and Harris Township had 27.

Outages were reported in most areas of the county. The highest numbers were in Snow Shoe Township and Snow Shoe Borough, which had more than 1,300 affected customers, and Benner Township with 593.

Estimated restoration times ranged from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Fire companies and West Penn Power crews were dispatched to downed trees and power lines in the State College, Bellefonte, Snow Shoe, Philipsburg and Penns Valley areas throughout the afternoon.

A severe thunderstorm watch for most of central Pennsylvania, including Centre County, was in effect until 8 p.m. A wind advisory is in effect until 2 a.m. Sunday, with winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour and gusts of 55 miles per hour.

PSUFootballWx, a Twiiter account that records real-time weather data at Beaver Stadium, reported a wind gust of 68 miles per hour at about 3:20 p.m.