(Radio Iowa) – Dozens of utility workers from Iowa are now in Ohio, helping restore electricity to thousands of homes and businesses in areas where the remnants of Hurricane Helene caused widespread damage over the weekend. Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for MidAmerican Energy, says they sent about 70 line workers and support crews to Cincinnati after staging with their big bucket trucks in Des Moines and Davenport on Friday night.

There are areas of the south and southeastern U-S that were much harder hit by the storm’s remnants than Ohio, and Greenwood says the Iowa crews that are now in the Cincinnati metro are expecting to get another assignment very soon.

It’s still unclear where the Iowa crews will be heading next to lend a hand.

At the peak, about 140-thousand Cincinnati area customers were without power, and by 9 A-M on Monday, only three-thousand or so remained offline, so the Iowa crews should be wrapping up there very soon. While Ohio is a long way from the ocean, the former hurricane still caused severe damage.

Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy serves 820,000 electric customers in Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota, and 797,000 natural gas customers in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota.