Some Penelec customers in the northern portion of the county will be in the dark Monday as the electric company upgrades equipment.

According to Penelec spokesperson Linda Routzahn, the planned outage will take place from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday Nov. 9.

"The outage is to upgrade our facilities for enhanced circuit reliability for our customers," she said.

The affected area stretches from Route 62 at Hillside Drive, North Warren, all the way to the New York border. It also stretches down Route 957 to Eisenhower High School. The outage area includes the towns of Russell and Akeley.

Although Eisenhower will be without power, there is no school Monday, so the school session will not be affected. The non-school day made scheduling a little easier for the Penelec officials.

"We attempted to balance the need of customers in scheduling (the upgrade)," Routzahn said.

In total, she said, "It looks like there will be about 1,100 customers affected."

Penelec has been working to alert the customers that will experience an outage.

"They should receive several recorded messages via telephone," she said.

While working to alert the customers, Routzahn said only one account in the affected area was flagged, meaning the customer has a critical need for electricity for a life support apparatus. She indicated that this particular customer would be contacted personally by Penelec to staff.

Although the outage is an inconvenience, Routzahn said the upgrade will greatly benefit the customers.