May 1, 2025 By Mike Jones, Karen Mansfield and Paul Paterra 5 min read

Tuesday’s storm caused widespread damage across Washington County, with significant power outages, numerous fallen trees that damaged houses and even a pizza shop’s roof that was blown off from the high winds.

Washington County Public Safety Director Gerry Coleman said the county’s 911 operations center was overloaded with calls, receiving 1,900 emergency requests for service in a 24-hour period, which is four times what a typical day would bring.

“It’s all spread out, the whole county,” Coleman said about the widespread nature of the damage. “It’s hard to narrow down to one portion of the county. I would say (the storm) affected the entire county. It was bad.”

In Robinson Township, the high winds shifted a house off its foundation while Billy Boy’s Pizza shop in Slovan had its roof blown off and garage doors collapsed inward, Coleman said. Elsewhere, there were fallen trees that landed on houses or power lines, and even some structure fires due to electrical surges.

Washington County was still affected by the storm well into Wednesday afternoon. According to West Penn Power, more than 22,000 customers in Washington County remained without power, while the numbers were significantly lower in Greene County, with 782 customers out of service and about 200 in Fayette County.

West Penn Power spokesman Todd Meyers said at its high point, Washington County had about 40,000 customers without power, a number that had been almost reduced in half by Wednesday afternoon.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Meyers said. “That’s not to say that we haven’t made a lot of progress. There was very widespread damage. It was a very widespread storm with all of those winds. The storm took a wide path and ran deep across the state. There’s lots of tree damage, poles and wires down. It’s going to take a while to clean up.”

Due to the extent of damage, restoration work is expected to continue over the next few days, particularly in Pennsylvania, Meyers said. More than 2,000 lineworkers, hazard responders, forestry crews, safety and other support personnel from FirstEnergy sister companies in Ohio and New Jersey are assisting the company’s Pennsylvania and West Virginia crews with storm response.

“There’s still going to be several days to go,” Meyers said.

Residents turned up at local coffee shops and restaurants to charge their electronic devices and grab breakfast as they waited for power to be restored following the power outages. Bob Bradley of Canonsburg, who stopped at Chicco Baccello in the borough to charge a laptop and cellphone, said he lost power at around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, and it was still out as of Wednesday morning.

“I just looked at West Penn Power’s outage map and it says it’s undetermined what time it will be back on,” said Bradley. “But, I did get a delicious breakfast.”

The storm also created a very busy night for many first responders, including the Peters Township Fire Department, which continued working into Wednesday.

“There were a lot of trees down, a lot of wind, a lot of power lines (down) and a lot of blocked roads,” Peters Township fire Chief Mike McLaughlin said. “We were getting calls well into the night as people were coming upon new things, trees down. The calls came in bulk for that first hour and then they’ve been trickling in ever since.”

The chief said the department was in restoration mode Wednesday as many areas in the township remained without power, such as the township municipal building, many schools and two fire stations, which were operating on emergency generators.

“We’ve been waiting on West Penn Power for a lot of stuff, but word on the street is that they’re doing a really good job in prioritizing things and bringing things back on line,” McLaughlin said. “A lot of critical infrastructure is out of service. It was a short storm, which is good. We’re thankful that it didn’t bring in a lot of rain and flooding that could have caused a bunch of additional damage.”

Half of Washington County’s school districts were closed or operated on a delay Wednesday. Canon-McMillan School District Superintendent Gregory Taranto said several of the district’s schools lost power during the storm, and two buildings were still without power mid-morning Wednesday.

“That was the main factor,” said Taranto, adding that several roads in the district were closed or partially closed and traffic rerouted due to fallen trees and debris.

The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh said the weather formation was a “bow echo” storm, with a bow-shaped line of strong winds that are the heaviest at the apex of the curve. Meteorologist Liana Lupo said a wind gust of 54 mph was recorded at Washington County Airport, while a gust of 71 mph was recorded at Pittsburgh International Airport – the third-highest wind gust the airport has recorded in modern history. Arnold Palmer Regional Airport near Latrobe reported the highest wind gust in the area at 79 mph.

While Washington and Allegheny counties appeared to take the brunt of the storm, Greene and Fayette counties were mostly spared.

“We fared well,” Fayette County Emergency Management spokeswoman Sue Kozak-Griffith said. “It was the basics, trees and utility lines in the roadway.”

More showers and thunderstorms are expected today, with a potential for severe weather in the afternoon and evening that could include damaging winds as the main threat.