Crews are pictured clearing debris following a storm that moved through the area mid-Thursday. Almost 4,000 residents were without power as the result of the storm. Submitted photo

Cleanup and repairs continued Friday throughout Chautauqua County after severe thunderstorms caused power outtages for thousands of residents.

Nearly 4,000 county residents were without power after Thursday’s storms.

Crews from the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities worked to restore power inside the city while National Grid servicemen were addressed outages in the towns of Busti, Poland and Carroll.

Several hundred National Grid customers were still without power early Friday morning, including significant groups in Gerry, Poland and Carroll.

Becky Robbins, communications coordinator for the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities, said that power outages were primarily caused by standard storm conditions such as high winds and rain.

Just before 5 p.m. on Thursday, the storm began taking down tree limbs and branches, which affected power lines.

“I just spoke to the supervisor who was in charge last night,” Robbins said. “She had told me it was mostly storm damage, so that is basically it. The high winds brought down power lines and trees, and tree branches knocked into power lines. It was basic storm damage. It basically started, as a I understand it, at about 4:45 yesterday afternoon. I was out in my car at that time and had to pull over it was raining so hard. The winds were knocking little branches on my car.”

The conditions caused a loss of power to most of the north side of the city, with half of the area being restored by 7:30 p.m. before full repairs were made by 10:30 p.m.

In Celoron, high winds caused a primary line to fall.

“Celoron was out for about 45 minutes,” Robbins said. “The problem there was that the wind had knocked down primary lines on Jones and Gifford Avenue. They had to cut power to that area to safely facilitate repairs. The linemen were out until about 4:30 a.m. this morning.”

Robbins said that additional thunderstorms early Friday morning did not contribute to the outages.

In Lakewood and Busti, isolated outages were reported on Spruce Street, Front Street, Winch Road and Big Tree Road.