Area firefighters, police and power company crews on New Year's Eve were singing “Low Hang Line” as an alternative to the old chestnut traditionally sung at midnight.

On Monday, a day of steady rain coupled with high winds in the waning hours of 2018 caused headaches for first responders.

According to 911 dispatch reports, the calls began in earnest at about 10:30 p.m., when wires were reported down on Centreville Pike in Brady Township.

An hour later, the sparkling cider was returned to the refrigerator for Adams Area Fire District volunteer firefighters when utility lines were reported down on Crowe Avenue in Mars.

A utility pole in Herman caught fire at the same time, sending firefighters rushing to the scene.

Three reports of wires down in three different townships came in the span of a half-hour just after the ball dropped in Times Square, the reports state.

Four more calls of downed wires came throughout the night and into Tuesday morning.

With those calls came widespread power outages, as 1,600 customers found themselves without power at 7 a.m. Tuesday. Still, the numbers paled in comparison to those produced by the winter storm that hit in mid-November.

According to First Energy's online outage count, the outages were being quickly repaired by West Penn Power crews.

Aaron Ruegg, a spokesman for West Penn, said about 2,000 Butler County customers were affected. He noted that people started losing power around 5 a.m. Tuesday.

As of 5:45 p.m., less than 100 customers were still without power. The majority of crews still working in Butler County on Tuesday evening were in the Cabot area, Ruegg said. The company expected to have power restored for everyone in the county by 5 a.m. Wednesday.

“We have our crews working as quickly and efficiently as possible to restore power,” Ruegg said. He said damage appeared to be primarily caused by downed trees and heavy winds.

Central Electric Cooperative reported 62 customers remaining without power late Tuesday morning.

Those outages were mostly in the northeastern section of the county.