Damage minor

Portland firefighters were called to a report of a tree falling on a house in Wednesday evening’s storm.

It turned out to be a false alarm.

Though power was out in some areas of Jay County for several hours Wednesday night, damage was limited to fallen trees and branches.

Portland Fire Department responded to a call about 5:54 p.m. Wednesday for a tree that had fallen on a house. However, upon arriving, firefighters found the tree had not struck the house at 415 S. Western Ave. 

Instead, the tree near the entrance of Hines Inman Memorial Field was uprooted and fell across the street and landed on utility lines on the opposite side. The incident caused a nearby transformer to blow.

Indiana Michigan Power reported that as of 8:30 p.m. Wednesday it had more than 15,000 customers without power, including about 10,000 in east central Indiana.

By this morning, there were just over 4,000 I&M customers without power, with the bulk of them in east central Indiana. According to the I&M outage map, that included about 75 customers in Portland who were still without power as of Thursday morning. Another 10 remained without power in Dunkirk.

The company said it expected to have all customers restored by midnight Thursday.

Western Avenue between Blaine Pike and Third Street was closed Wednesday night because of the downed tree. It was open Thursday morning.

Portland police received several calls Wednesday evening about tree limbs in streets and electricity problems. Damage throughout the county mainly consisted of downed trees and branches, noted Jay County Emergency Management Agency director Samantha Rhodehamel.