More than 3,000 Easton residents are without power Friday as fire crews continue to battle a stubborn blaze on Northampton Street that has been burning for hours and left at least one person injured.
Flames could be seen out the front and the back of the building in the 400 block of Northampton Street as crews from the city and surrounding area worked. A little after 3 p.m. smoke was still billowing out of the upper floors.
FirstEnergy Corp.’s Met-Ed reported roughly 3,500 customers are affected by the outages and the company expects to have service restored within the hour, Met-Ed spokeswoman Lauren Siburkis said.
Intermittent power and traffic light outages may affect service times, she added.
Crews were called at 10:45 a.m. for the three-alarm blaze and Easton police blocked off Northampton and Pine streets. A man crawled out of a fourth-story window to escape the blaze.
One person was taken by ambulance from the scene, a Northampton County 911 dispatch supervisor said.
Cristina Maisel, regional communications manager for the American Red Cross Greater Pennsylvania Region, said the organization’s Disaster Action Team is at the scene in Easton and is assisting families.
People were standing around the scene distraught as they watched emergency responders, according to a lehighvalleylive.com reporter who immediately responded to the scene.
A little after 1:30 p.m. the State Theatre announced in a Facebook post the Easton Fire Department requested the show scheduled for Friday night, Riverdance 30, be canceled due to safety concerns on Northampton Street.
The owner of Precision Cuts Barbershop, a shop across the street, said he had four customers inside when he was forced to evacuate the space and close his shop early.
Platinum Star Cleaning Company closed their offices, the company announced online.
“We are thinking of those impacted and would like to thank the Easton Fire Department and surrounding fire departments for their dedicated service. Our prayers are with all those who were affected by these unfortunate tragedy,”
A spokesperson for Crayola told lehighvalleylive.com that electricity to the area was out at the building on Northampton Street and 275 were evacuated.
Updates will be shared online but the company at 30 Centre Square will be closed through Saturday.
Trans-Bridge Lines also announced it would be experiencing delays at the Easton Transportation Center.
“With the power outages, we may be unable to navigate past the electric barrier to enter the intermodal area. If that occurs, we will pick up and drop off in front of the Transportation Center on S. Third St.,” the company said in a Facebook post.