After a week of storm warnings, a powerful and unusually severe windstorm moved across Ohio on Friday, March 13, 2026, causing widespread damage and leaving hundreds of thousands of our customers without power.
This was the most significant wind event our system has experienced in more than a decade. The last time wind caused this much damage was a derecho that blew through Ohio in June 2012.
We know how difficult power outages are. Losing electricity disrupts your routine, your work and your ability to stay comfortable and connected. In some cases, it might affect your sense of safety. Many of our own employees and their families lost power at their homes as well, while continuing to report to work and support restoration efforts across the state.
What happened
The storm brought sustained winds in the 20–35 mph range, with gusts reaching 72 mph in some areas. Those conditions lasted over many hours and affected our entire service area, causing widespread damage.
Large limbs and even entire trees fell onto power lines and equipment across Ohio, knocking out electricity across a wide area. Outages began mid-morning and increased rapidly throughout the day. By early evening, more than 250,000 customers were without power. In total, 344,000 AEP Ohio customers (more than one-fifth of our company’s entire grid) experienced an outage during the storm and restoration process.
Why restoration takes time
Storms of this scale create widespread damage at the same time across many communities which means restoration is not a single repair, but thousands of individual repairs that must be constantly evaluated and completed safely.
Keeping the power on for our customers is our top priority, but this can only be done well if it is done safely. The safety of our crews and the public is essential.
During the height of the storm, winds were too strong for lineworkers to safely climb poles or operate bucket trucks. Crews were staged and ready, but in many cases had to wait until conditions calmed before beginning repairs. Some crews even reported trees falling around them as they assessed damage.
As soon as it was safe to work on Friday evening, crews quickly began restoring power.
How restoration unfolded
- Power was restored to more than one-third of affected customers overnight Friday.
- More than 131,000 additional customers were restored on Saturday.
- By Sunday morning, about 39,000 customers remained without power.
- By Monday night, that number was reduced to approximately 1,500.
A second round of storms on Sunday night caused additional outages, especially in northwest Ohio, but crews continued working through those challenges.
Our job was not done until everyone had electricity again. Crews restored outages throughout Tuesday, and all affected customers had power by Wednesday.
The scale of the damage
This storm caused damage across the entire AEP Ohio service territory in a matter of hours — something we rarely see. We estimate that about 90% of the damage was caused by trees, many of them on property not owned by AEP Ohio and therefore beyond areas we regularly maintain.
Crews repaired:
- 292 broken poles.
- 1,565 spans of wire.
- 144 crossarms.
- 81 transformers.
More than 4,000 lineworkers, tree crews, dispatchers and support personnel — including mutual assistance partners from 14 states — worked around the clock for a combined total of 208,923 hours to restore service.
Our commitment to you
“Storms like this are a reminder of how much our customers count on having reliable power,” AEP Ohio President & COO Marc Reitter said. “I want to thank our customers for the patience and understanding they showed our crews in the field. And thank you to our crews for responding quickly and restoring service safely.”
Throughout the restoration process, our focus was on two things:
- Restoring power as quickly as possible.
- Doing that work safely.
We know waiting for the lights to come back on is frustrating, especially as the hours stretch to days.
Our crews worked as quickly as safely possible in challenging conditions to restore power, prioritizing repairs in communities across the state that would bring the largest number of customers back online first. Incorporating lessons learned from this effort will help us continue to deliver reliable power to our customers, both during history making storms and day-to-day.
Looking ahead
We actively manage vegetation across our system and have significantly improved reliability over time. However, storms of this size — especially those impacting such a large area at once — can still cause extensive damage, particularly from trees outside of maintained areas.
AEP Ohio continues to invest in tools and technology to better identify risks and strengthen our system for the future.
We appreciated your patience and understanding during this event. We are deeply grateful for the support you showed our crews in the field.
