(Whitewater Valley)--Chain saws will be firing up across the Whitewater Valley Thursday morning as cleanup begins from storms carrying strong winds blew through the area Wednesday night.  Richmond reported wind gusts in excess of 60 miles per hour at around 6 o’clock Wednesday night, bringing down trees and knocking out power.  Some of those outages were lingering Thursday morning.  RP&L reported only 20 still out at 4:30 Thursday morning.  But, almost 1200 customers of AES in Preble County were still out early Thursday.  Full restoration is not expected until 8 o’clock Thursday night.  Whitewater Valle REMC showed 740 customers still in the dark.  Most of those were just south of Richmond.  The most widespread outage still remaining Thursday morning is for Duke Energy customers in Union County, where almost 2400 customers were without power.  Duke has not set an estimated time for restoration.  Lingering power outages were not the only impact from Wednesday night’s storm.  Numerous buildings across the Whitewater Valley also sustained structural damage from either wind or lightning.  A roof was partially blown off a storage building at North 15^th and E Street in Richmond.  Lightning struck a tree, which then came down onto a house, on Centerville Road just north of Williamsburg.  Numerous utility poles came down across Union County.  Local law enforcement was urging caution when driving Thursday morning because limbs or power lines may still be down across roadways, especially in more rural areas.  No injuries have been reported as a result of Wednesday night’s storms.