MORROW, Ohio — Families in the Village of Morrow are fed up with frequent power outages, with some residents experiencing the cold and dark repeatedly throughout the year.
The latest overnight outage left dozens of residents without electricity for hours during freezing temperatures, prompting families to reach out to us, demanding action from Duke Energy and village officials.
"11 years, we've lived here. Since the day we moved in, the first month we lost power twice," resident Jennefer Jacob told us during a phone call.
And Jacob isn't alone in her frustration. Several residents in the Ryan Homes at Woodlands at Morrow contacted us seeking solutions to what they described as a chronic problem.
Mackenzie Davenport lives in the Ryan Homes at Woodlands neighborhood and says this marks the 23rd power outage her area has experienced this year.
WATCH: Why residents at Ryan Homes at Woodland say this issue needs to be addressed
"Many, many neighbors have complained they've reached out to Duke, the only response that we get is just file a complaint, and we'll work on it," Davenport said. "We lost all of our food. We had just done our big grocery haul for Christmas, and before the holidays, so it's tough."
Duke Energy Ohio has undertaken significant improvements over the last several years to meet the expectations of our growing customer base. These investments focus on strengthening the grid to make it more resistant to outages from severe weather and improving resiliency to restore power faster when outages occur. We routinely evaluate outage data and execute targeted improvements on our system – from trimming trees, installing stronger and more resilient equipment and self-healing technology.
Have you been affected by power outages? De'Jah wants to hear from you. You can contact her here:
We contacted the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), which regulates utilities in the state. PUCO said three people reported outages in the subdivision and thousands outside of it.
"We received an outage report that said, due to high winds, 2,945 customers were out of electricity yesterday, of that 1,412 were in Warren County," a PUCO representative said.
PUCO said it's investigating the complaints, but resident Lindsey Rinderlel says she wants more action.
"Frustrating, because I have a young kid, three years old, and when the power is out for hours at a time. He's like, 'Why are the lights out?' and it gets really cold when it's out from four in the afternoon until six in the morning," Rinderlel said.
The Morrow village administrator told me the ongoing problem is a concern. She said the village has worked with Duke Energy to reduce outages and that Duke has cut down trees and relocated power lines.
Duke Energy is responsible for power transmission to the Village of Morrow and we have worked with them over the past 2 years to try to decrease the number of outages. There was a Village Council meeting on this topic in early 2025 in which the leadership of Duke Energy in Cincinnati presented their strategies for mitigating power outages in our area. Causes for those outages are mostly vehicle accidents involving power line poles and downed trees which take out power lines. Duke has made a concerted effort over the past year to remove any trees which threaten power lines. They have even relocated power lines in areas of dense trees. Yesterday's power outage was the result of a downed tree in the area and Duke worked all night to restore power to the area.
But residents like Davenport said she's still wondering when something will be done.
"When is enough gonna be enough," Davenport said.
