The storm on Nov. 5 produced high winds leading to power outages across Crawford, Seneca, and Richland counties. The winds brought down trees and limbs which brought down the powerlines. Nearly 500 North Central Electric members were without power, some as long as seven hours.
Crews worked as quickly and safely as possible to restore power. They removed trees from the powerlines, repaired primary and secondary lines, and replaced broken poles. This is the reason the cooperative is so aggressive at maintaining the system, and, when possible, trimming or removing trees near power lines.
North Central line crews restored power Sunday night and early Monday. The cooperative then sent mutual aid to its federation partner, Lorain-Medina Rural Electric (LMRE) in Wellington. The three, two-man bucket truck crews helped restore power for individual outages throughout LMRE’s service area. The NCE crews worked with an assigned LMRE crew member until 11 p.m. on Nov. 6. 
The cooperative’s call center, Cooperative Response Center, handled phone calls from NCE members Sunday night. Calls can be expedited if members keep their contact information up to date with the cooperative. Many members have dropped their landlines and are using cell phones. 
The member’s phone number is entered into the cooperative’s database and is tied to the member’s account number. When the member contacts the call center during periods of heavy outages, the outage can be automatically tagged to their location based on the phone number, without even talking to the customer service representative.