9 hours ago
West Penn Power to cut electricity in Jefferson Hills for necessary repairs
West Penn Power to cut electricity in Jefferson Hills for necessary repairs
West Penn Power to cut electricity in Jefferson Hills for necessary repairs
West Penn Power to cut electricity in Jefferson Hills for necessary repairs
If you're a West Penn Power customer around Floreffe and Jefferson Hills, check your voicemail.
Approximately 600 customers will have their power temporarily shut off on Friday as crews make repairs that have been pushed back twice.
The planned outage was supposed to happen on Thursday. Before that, it was originally scheduled for Monday.
"It's going to be rough," Robert Gulla of Jefferson Hills said.
"There's a lot of senior citizens in this area," Gloria Gulla of Jefferson Hills said. "They're going to have a hard time trying to function without air."
The Gullas know that struggle well.
"With my heart condition [and] no air conditioning?" Robert Gulla exclaimed.
Gloria told KDKA-TV that she has cancer for the second time after already battling lung cancer. She's receiving treatments and says the heat makes it harder to breathe.
It wasn't fun for them when heat damaged a conductor at the Floreffe substation on Sunday.
"We were without power for the longest time there," Robert Gulla said.
"Right now, we only have one feed into that substation. The other line is the one that's damaged," West Penn Power spokesperson Todd Meyers said.
West Penn says it wanted to fix that on Monday.
"Because things were too hot, we had to push that out to later in the week," Meyers said.
Wednesday's severe weather in parts of the area didn't help either.
"Our crews were out there working to restore power after some of those storms," Meyers said.
There are nearly 10 streets impacted. West Penn says the outage will affect customers in the vicinity of:
State Street
Finleyville Elrama Road
Route 837
Collins Avenue
Davidson Avenue
Circle Avenue
Ramage Avenue
Veronica Drive
Lobbs Run Road
Not all homes on those streets will be affected.
"We give them notice with an automated call," Meyers said. "We know which customers would be impacted; it's the most efficient way to get through to our customers."
West Penn says it doesn't want to wait.
Meyers told KDKA-TV that something as simple as a car into a pole could make things even worse.
Other services could suffer as well if the fix hadn't been made soon, allowing for secondary ways to service that area.
"There's a drinking water company that would also be impacted if that line, the one that's remaining in service, [were] to go down," Meyers said.
"We don't believe the outage is gonna have to take that entire window," Meyers said.
It's a long window, but the Gullas understand why it's necessary.
"If they've gotta do it, I guess they've gotta do it," Robert Gulla said.
Friday's outage is scheduled to be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
