MERCER COUNTY AREA — Local officials and emergency responders breathed a collective sigh of relief Tuesday morning as it became evident that Hurricane Sandy spared much of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.

“We feel very blessed,’’ said Mercer County Commissioner John Lechnner.

Weather forecasters had braced the area for howling winds above 50 mph and up to 6 inches of rain. The highest recorded wind was 38 mph late Monday at Mercer County’s Department of Public Safety office in Mercer.

Rainfall amounted to 2.05 inches over 48 hours from 1 p.m. Sunday to 1 p.m. Tuesday at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office at Shenango River Lake.

There were reports of leaky basements and just a few phone outages but nothing came close to the major hit along the East Coast.

At the height of the storm late Monday, Pennsylvania Power Co. reported 127 of its Mercer County customers were without power and that number had been reduced to 34 by 4 p.m. Tuesday. Those outage figures are well below levels seen in other storms, where thousands of customers are often without power in the county.  

Schools opened on Tuesday morning but many districts opted for two-hour delays. Pennsylvania closed all of its more than 600 state-operated liquor stores no later than 3 p.m. Monday and they remained closed all day Tuesday. Stores are expected to open as usual today.

All Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry unemployment compensation call centers were closed Tuesday as were all PennDOT driver’s license and photo identification centers.

Emergency responders were in full ready mode, said Frank A. Jannetti, director of the Mercer County Department of Public Safety.     

“Things went by the playbook,’’ Jannetti said of the emergency action plan. “We followed our plans and put extra staff on duty at our 911 center. Fortunately, we didn’t need it. Call volume was up a little, but not a great deal.’’

By mid-Tuesday Jannetti said it was still too early for the all-clear.

“We still have limbs and trees coming down in the county and we’ll keep an eye on those sort of things,’’ he added.

No roads were washed out from the storm but part of one, state Route 846 in West Salem Township, was closed at 3:49 a.m. Tuesday due to a downed utility line, said Lee Carroll, a PennDOT spokesman. The road was reopened at 7:25 a.m.      

In all, there were 26 locations with downed trees or utility lines blocking roads; all were cleared fairly quickly. Springfield Church Road near Jackson Center had high water levels but was still open to traffic.    

At the height of the storm, PennDOT had to take care of its own as a 2-foot section of an antenna tower next to its Mercer maintenance building blew off and gouged a hole in the roof, Carroll said.

“The roof will be patched until more permanent repairs can be made,’’ he said.

PennDOT crews were still out Tuesday afternoon, checking on downed trees and plugged drainage grates.

Giant Eagle in Hermitage reported a phone outage Tuesday morning but that appeared to be an isolated incident.

“For the western side of the state, this was nothing more than a severe storm,’’ said Lee Gierczynski, a Verizon spokesman. “There were no major outages in the western part of the state.’’

Shenango River Lake saw its water level rise 2èfeet from its lowest level this month but was more than able to handle the volume of water, said John Kolodziejski, resource manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which oversees the lake. Prior to the storm, lake levels were running below normal.

“This rain was good news as we did need to build up our pool level,’’ Kolodziejski said. “This turned out to be a relatively minor event for us, fortunately.’’

As for those areas on the East Coast hardest hit by the hurricane, it could be a week or even longer before utility service is restored.  

FirstEnergy, the parent of Penn Power, began moving its crews from eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania over the weekend to staging areas on the storm’s projected path. As local outages get repaired more crews will be moved to the east, said Scott Surgeoner, a FirstEnergy spokesman.

“Just to give you an idea of the numbers we’re dealing with, our Jersey Central Power & Light Co. in New Jersey serves 1.1 million customers,’’ Surgeoner said late Tuesday afternoon. “There are 940,00 of those customers who are without lights. I’ve been with FirstEnergy for 32 plus years and have never seen a number like that.’’