More than 85,000 FirstEnergy customers in Ohio, 35,000 in Cuyahoga County, were still without power as of mid-afternoon Saturday, after strong winds Friday swept across Northeast Ohio, reaching more than 70 miles per hour in some areas.
The winds knocked trees and blew debris throughout the region, with power outages affecting businesses and homes and knocking out traffic lights. FirstEnergy said on its website that crews were working to restore service, although "due to the extent of he damage and ongoing windy conditions in some areas, restoration work is expected to continue over the next few days."
“Right now, crews are assessing the damage, you know, they're clearing roads, trying to get to outages," said Brooke Conlan, a spokesperson for FirstEnergy. "That's the big thing. What delayed us a little bit too is these winds were so strong, and our crews can't operate safely in a bucket when uh, winds reach over more than 40 miles per hour. It's not safe. They not allowed up there. So that kind of hindered us a little bit when trying to restore power a little bit quicker. So right now they're out. The winds obviously have died down, which is nice, so we are going location to location and just trying to restore our customers as quickly and as safely as possible.”
FirstEnergy said approximately 162,000 Illuminating Company customers and 174,000 Ohio Edison customers had lost power as a result of Friday's winds. It said it had nearly 3,400 workers making repairs and working on restoring service.
The biggest outages in Northeast Ohio in terms of total customers affected were in Cuyahoga, Summit, Geauga and Richland counties , according to FirstEnergy's outage website.
The city of Cleveland said warming centers would be available Saturday until 10 p.m. due to the outages and the cold temperatures. The locations are the Michael Zone Recreation Center, the EJ Kovacic Recreation Center, the Frederick Douglass Recreation Center and the Collinwood Recreation Center. The city said transportation would be provided to nearby shelters for anyone requiring overnight shelter.
Cleveland Public Power was not reporting any outages for its customers on its online map as of Saturday afternoon.
On its website, FirstEnergy cautioned people to stay away from any downed power lines and report them using 9-1-1. It also said to avoid using gas stoves or grills indoor for heat to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. Customers can get updates by texting STAT to 544487.
The National Weather Service is forecasting windy conditions across Northeast Ohio again on Sunday and beyond, with gusts potentially reaching up to 40 miles per hour Sunday night.
