Don't blame Edison for storm power outages - 13abc.com Toledo (OH) News, Weather and Sports

Most Toledo Edison customers have electricity following last Thursday's storms.  But can the power company be blamed for the lights going dark?  

Toledo Edison tries to prepare for the worst.  The company sends out licensed forestry crews to cut down tree limbs that endanger power lines.  But the company can literally only go so far.  And that distance is bounded by the public right of way.

13 ABC spent the day in Holland, OH, a suburb of Toledo, and we found Steve Kokocinski doing a little tree pruning after Thursday's big storm.   Steve has seen a lot of storms in his 60-years in this neighborhood.   He told reporter Bill Hormann, "When I built my house, here, this was all woods and I saved the best trees out."

But over the years, other houses sprouted among the trees.  And it isn't until you get your power knocked out that you realize power lines and trees are as tied together as twigs and leaves.  The evidence litters nearly every street in Holland.  

"Wind is public enemy number one for the utility."

A Toledo Edison spokesman says, at it's peak, 60-thousand customers had no power and there's little the company could do to prevent that.

Doug Colafella told us, "As long as you have overhead lines and trees, people love trees, we have to deal with storms like this from time to time."

People like their trees and their private property.  Toledo Edison comes by and cuts trees around their suspended distribution lines but they can only cut along the public right of way.  And even then... They have to leave some of the tree...

Aside from tree cutting, the power company could bury those distribution lines.  It frequently does that in new housing developments.  However, Toledo Edison says the equipment can still fail.  That will cause power outages and because the wires are buried, it would take longer to make repairs since you couldn't see the problem without digging out the line.

So homeowners just have to accept the fact that, as long as power poles are planted in leafy neighborhoods, you're going to lose power in a severe storm.  As Steve Kokocinski says, "Something like happened this weekend, nobody can predict that."

And apparently, the power company can't prevent it.