By JENNY DERRINGER

and JARED ORZOLEK

crescent@crescent-news.com

When Friday evening's severe thunderstorms rolled through northwest Ohio, thousands were left in the dark as utility poles and electrical lines were downed.

And as temperatures reached into the low 90s, many residents went the entire weekend without electricity while clean-up efforts continued to clear properties of trees and limbs littering the ground.

Local utility crews were pushed to capacity, with other power company crews called in to help restore power to customers.

When the storm hit the area, more than 40,000 Toledo Edison customers were without power, according to Reggie Strauss, area manager.

"That's a significant outage for us," said Strauss. "There was significant damage."

He noted that as of 8 a.m. today, there were still six outages in Defiance County, 19 in Fulton County and nine in Henry County. Throughout the weekend, utility crews were assisted by sister companies in Pennsylvania, Cleveland and Sandusky in making repairs.

The village of Holgate lost power but as of 6 p.m. Sunday, electrical service was restored to that area.

According to Henry County EMA director Tracy Busch, power was expected to be back on by 1 p.m. Sunday, but a switch malfunctioned in a main transmission line, causing an additional delay in the flow of electricity.

"We got everyone's power back on at 6 last night," Busch said this morning.

Busch said the breeze which blew through the area Sunday helped make the 90-degree temperatures more bearable for those without power.

The EMA director noted that the straight line winds associated with the powerful storm damaged some structures in the county, but no serious injuries were reported.

"There are some buildings that had some serious damage. It's all relative to the home or business," Busch said.

He said funnel clouds were reported in the county during the storm, but no tornado touchdowns have been confirmed.

In Napoleon, the high winds contributed to a traffic accident Friday in the 200 block of Yeager Street, according to the Napoleon Police Department.

Police said that at 9:10 p.m. a tree fell on a car driven by Jacob Wyckhouse, 23, 1217 Oakwood Ave., Napoleon, causing heavy damage.

The Henry County Sheriff's Office also reported damage, including trees falling on vehicles at 308 East St. in Liberty Center and at Ohio 424 and County Road 15-C.

Nearly 1,000 customers of American Electric Power lost electricity, the majority of which were in Paulding County. AEP spokesman Shelly Clark stated this morning that single customers in Sherwood and Deshler were still without power.

Customers of Tricounty Rural Electric Cooperative in the rural Defiance, Weston and McClure areas also lost power. Much of that was restored by Saturday night.

Approximately 5,000 outages were also reported in the Paulding-Putnam Electric Cooperative territory, which included Cloverdale, Oakwood, Grover Hill, Continental, Antwerp, Paulding and Cecil. A spokesman for the company reported that by Saturday evening, power had been restored. The causes of the outages were related to broken utility poles and tree limbs damaging power lines.

A North Western Rural Electric Cooperative spokesman reported minimal outages Friday evening, particularly in the Mark Center area. Power was restored by 1 a.m. Saturday.