Three days after a derecho tore through Greater Cincinnati, more than 11,000 Duke Energy customers remained without power as of Friday, Aug. 14, down from a combined storm total exceeding 261,000 outages earlier in the week.
The Aug. 11 storm toppled trees and snapped utility poles across Mariemont and surrounding east-side villages, triggering what Duke Energy spokesman John Juech called "the highest count of outages and dispersion of damage I've seen across this region in my time at Duke."
Duke Energy has staged more than 2,000 lineworkers, tree trimmers and support personnel at Tri-County Mall, where well over 100 bucket trucks lined the parking lot for dispatch, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Crews from Indiana and the Carolinas joined local workers for around-the-clock shifts.
By 4 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 13, the utility had restored 85% of outages, according to a Duke Energy press release. The largest remaining concentrations of outages as of Thursday were in Green Township and north of Batavia in Clermont County, suggesting east-side neighborhoods may be closer to full restoration.
Fallen trees, broken poles and damaged equipment have been the primary obstacles. In some areas, crews must rebuild sections of the electric grid entirely. High winds during subsequent storm rounds on Wednesday, Aug. 12, further slowed progress, since bucket trucks cannot operate when gusts reach 30 mph.
Sycamore Township declares fourth storm emergency of 2026
Sycamore Township declared a storm damage emergency on Wednesday, Aug. 12, its fourth such declaration this year. The township had set a deadline of 8 a.m. Friday, Aug. 14, for residents to call 513-791-8447 or submit an online form at sycamoretownship.org to report damage and request free curbside pickup.
That deadline has passed. Residents who missed it still have two weeks to get debris to the curb and call back to schedule collection. The township is also offering free brush chipping on Saturday, Aug. 29, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the parking lot behind the Township Administration Building at 8540 Kenwood Road. As we reported in July, the township held a similar chipping event Aug. 1 after back-to-back storms in mid-July.
What residents should know
The Duke Energy Foundation has committed $100,000 in emergency grants: $75,000 to Freestore Foodbank, $15,000 to the American Red Cross and $10,000 to Matthew 25: Ministries for disaster relief supplies.
Residents can check outage status and estimated restoration times on Duke Energy's outage map at outagemaps.duke-energy.com, through the Duke Energy app or by calling 800-543-5599. Anyone who sees a downed power line should call 911 immediately.
