A pre-winter storm that dropped ice and snow on Butler County, downed numerous trees and power lines overnight, shutting down roads, crippling electrical service and closing schools.

Emergency crews worked from dusk to dawn answering calls for help.

“We've been out all night,” said Nathan Wulff, chief of the Unionville Volunteer Fire Department. “We got no sleep.”

More than 27,000 West Penn Power customers in Butler County — or about 25 percent of the utility's customers — were without power as of 7 a.m.

The outages were spread out across the utility's service area in the county. Tree damage and inclement weather, according to West Penn's website, were the reasons listed for the outages.

Crews were on site or on their way to the affected areas, the company said. The estimated restoration time, however, was vague but for many customers, it could be as late as 11 p.m. today.

All Butler County schools were closed today.

While many, the exact number and extent of the emergency calls in the county were not immediately clear.

“Too busy,” said a dispatcher at the Butler County Communications Center just before 7 a.m., when asked for information. He abruptly ended the call with no further comment.

According to the online computer-aided dispatch report for Butler County, calls for wires down were almost too many to count.

Between just 6 and 7 a.m., for example, there were 30 calls for power lines down on different roads throughout the county.

Municipal road departments were out in force before dawn and appeared to have most of the primary and many of the secondary roads in decent shape for commuters.

“The roads aren't bad,” Wulff said. “The back roads have a lot of slush but the other roads are getting done.”