CANFIELD TOWNSHIP — Trustees at their meeting on Tuesday heard a presentation from FirstEnergy spokesman Troy Rhoades, who spoke on power outages and offered some insight into what takes place when one hits the area.

Rhoades said Ohio has had a lot of storms, and one recent one that hit the tri-county area saw FirstEnergy putting 8,000 people on the job of restoring power. When there is a large power outage with hundreds to thousands of customers in the dark, Rhoades said there are a few things people need to know.

“In a large-scale outage, the restoration time is referred to as Global ETR,” he said. “ETR stands for Estimated Time to Restore.”

Rhoades explained the ETR often can be listed at days. He gave the example of a storm rolling through the area and causing a large outage number. At 7 a.m. the post goes up that power will be restored at 7 a.m. two days later.

“It is just the (electric) company saying ‘all’ the power will be restored by that time,” he said. “Many in that outage will have the power back in a few hours.”

He said others will have the power restored at any time within that two-day period. That deadline is simply an estimate of when everyone in the outage will have their power restored.

Rhoades also mentioned that some residents may be on a priority line. He said this would include electrical lines feeding a 911 station, the Emergency Management Agency or a hospital, and critical or needed entities.

“If you are on one of these circuits, you’re lucky,” he said. “If there is something the township sees as a critical service, please let us know.”

Rhoades added that Canfield Township has an important entity for FirstEnergy in the Canfield Fairgrounds. He said many driving by may notice a fleet of FirstEnergy trucks and equipment staged and ready to roll when storms hit, be it winter blizzards or summer severe weather.

“The fairgrounds is a designated staging area for FirstEnergy,” Rhoades said. “Our crews will report out of there.”

He said it helps keep crews centrally located and ready to respond wherever an outage occurs.

He recommended the township put a page on its website for electric service and contacts residents can use. Trustee Brian Governor said the township already has that established. Rhoades said he could help make it better by sending in forms and other info for electric customers that could be placed on the page.

In other business, trustees:

• Named officers for 2025, including Governor continuing as chairman, Trustee Joe Paloski serving as vice chair, and Trustee Marie Cartwright taking on the township official’s seat on the Cardinal Joint Fire District Board of Directors. Township Resident David Knarr will continue as the township citizen on the fire board.

• Approved The Vindicator as the township’s official newspaper for notices.

• Set the compensation per meeting or workshop for the Canfield Township Zoning Commission at $35, and for each case heard by the Zoning Board of Appeals at $35, both to be paid in a one-time cumulative check at year’s end.

• Set spending limits as follows: $3,000 for trustees and fiscal officer, $5,000 for township administrator, $4,000 for Public Works foreman, and $2,000 for assistant foreman.