Downtown Warren parking lot is flooded Friday morning between the old Hippodrome and Park Hotel off High Street NE.

The heavy rain and wind that toppled trees and took out power in many Mahoning Valley communities Thursday and Friday cannot be blamed on the storm that devastated Louisiana.

WFMJ-TV meteorologist Eric Wilhelm said the violent weather activity here was spawned by a “very humid air mass, which was plenty of fuel for the scattered storms.”

The tropical depression that used to be Hurricane Laura is heading south of here on its way to the East Coast, according to forecasters, but the Mahoning Valley can expect the heavy rain to continue until about 10 this morning.

The scattered storms took a toll Friday morning and afternoon with high winds taking trees and wires down, along with a few lightning strikes.

By 4:10 p.m. Friday, the Ohio Edison website reported just 82 Trumbull County customers remained out of power, with scattered outages in Warren and Brookfield. There were 89 customers without power in Mahoning County with the most in the Coitsville, Campbell and Struthers areas, the website reported.

The Brookfield Fire Department was called after 11 a.m. Friday when lightning struck an electric pole outside a small building in the 69-acre Lee Industrial Park off Sharon Hubbard Road in Masury. The 911 report states workers were evacuated from the building. Fire Capt. Steve Smoot said there was no fire, but the charge from the lightning damaged the electric meter outside the building.

Other lightning strikes on electric poles were reported Friday morning by 911 along Green Acres Drive in Liberty and at state Route 193 and King Graves Road in Fowler.

Trumbull County 911 also dispatched crews about 1 p.m. to a fallen tree across Phillips Rice Road in Mecca.

Other trees had fallen Friday morning at Oakhill Mobile Homes Park on Ridge Avenue SE in Warren and in the 500 block of North High Street in Cortland, where an electric wire was downed on the car in the driveway. There were no injuries reported.

Thursday’s storm which included heavy rain and high winds toppled trees around 2 p.m. across the southbound driving lane of state Route 11 in Fowler and in a Brookfield neighborhood.

On Thursday night, the ramp from Interstate 80 east to Route 11 north was closed for several hours after a semi tractor-trailer hydroplaned off I-80 in Liberty. The driver wasn’t seriously hurt, and the road reopened Friday morning.

gvogrin@tribtoday.com