High Winds Cut Power to 600,000 in Midwest States

Hundreds of thousands of residents across the Midwest and Great Lakes region lost power Saturday due to high winds that battered the area from Friday into the weekend, toppling trees, damaging structures and sparking wildfires that claimed at least one life.

The severe weather system originated near the Great Lakes and moved eastward, affecting states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois. By midday Saturday, nearly 600,000 customers remained without electricity in those states, according to PowerOutage.us, a nationwide outage tracker. In western Pennsylvania alone, utility providers reported more than 90,000 Duquesne Light customers and 55,000 West Penn Power customers affected by evening Friday, with outages spreading through communities in Westmoreland and Allegheny counties.

Wind gusts reached extreme levels, with a 66 mph reading at Pittsburgh International Airport marking the city's fourth-strongest non-thunderstorm gust on record, the National Weather Service reported. Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport recorded 85 mph winds Friday afternoon. The National Weather Service had issued high wind warnings, forecasting gusts up to 65 mph, which persisted into...