COLUMBUS, Ohio — AEP Ohio confirmed the company has withdrawn from the Columbus Pride festival and parade this weekend after intentionally shutting off power to Columbus customers following severe weather earlier this week.
In a statement sent to 10TV, AEP said they are a proud supporter of the LGBTQ+ community but didn’t want to distract from the purpose of Pride.
“Many AEP employees are participating in the Columbus PRIDE celebration this weekend, but the decision was made not to participate as an organized AEP group to ensure that nothing distracts from the positive nature of the event,” the statement read.
The statement adds AEP Ohio is mindful of the safety of employees following threatening social media posts related to the outages.
Stonewall Columbus Executive Director Densil Porteous said he is appreciative of AEP Ohio’s thoughtful decision to make sure the focus stays on the community.
Densil added he doesn’t feel the decision by AEP has an impact on the company’s dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.
AEP Ohio’s decision to cut off power came after its systems were impacted by severe storms Monday night, which knocked out some of its large transmission lines.
Due to the extreme heat on Tuesday, some of the remaining lines became overloaded, causing the company to take customers offline throughout the day to protect the system and reduce the risk of longer, widespread outages.
In an update Wednesday evening, AEP Ohio said crews had made significant progress repairing damage to the transmission lines and allowed them to restore power to Columbus by early Thursday morning.