Pennsylvania Power Co. crews struggled to restore power to customers in Mercer County and neighboring areas as sustained high winds Sunday knocked trees into lines.

The first reports came in at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

"By noon we had a full-blown problem on our hands," said Area Manager Randy Coleman.

More than 8,000 outage reports had been called in by 11 p.m.

As of 6:30 a.m. Monday, only about 2,000 customers were without power, and that figure had dropped to 12 by about 9 p.m.

Coleman said he hoped power would be restored to all customers by midnight Monday.

In Mercer County, the South Pymatuning Township, West Middlesex and Mercer areas were the hardest hit, Coleman said, adding that Penn Power crews also worked to restore power in Crawford, Lawrence and Butler counties.

More than 90 percent of the outages were caused by trees and tree branches that fell on lines, Coleman said.

"The problem was, this was a longstanding, enduring wind that weakened the trees and weakened the debris," he said. "The calls kept building and building and building."

The wind speed was consistently over 20 mph from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, and gusted at speeds up to 47 mph, according to National Weather Service readings at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, Vienna.

Coleman said electric company wind-speed monitors recorded gusts of up to 64 mph, some that were sustained for four or five minutes.

The company had problems keeping outages straight as trees fell on lines in areas that crews had already worked on, Coleman said. Extra staff was brought in to call customers and better delineate what work had been done and what still needed to be done.

Mercer and Lawrence work crews were augmented by manpower and equipment from Youngstown, Kinsman and Ashtabula, Ohio, Coleman said.