In a text message sent to those without power Friday, FirstEnergy stated that power may not be restored to the majority of customers until 4 p.m. on Aug. 30, five days after severe storms caused outages to nearly half a million customers across the Midwest.
A total of 460,300 FirstEnergy customers in Ohio and Pennsylvania have lost power due to the severe thunderstorms that impacted the company's service area over the last two nights, according to a news release from the company. Service has since been resorted to approximately 221,500 of those impacted customers.
FirstEnergy said the hardest-hit areas in Ohio were Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Columbiana, Mahoning, Portage, Summit and Trumbull counties.
"The tree- and flood-related damage is widespread, consisting of hundreds of broken poles and crossarms, downed power lines, and fallen trees and debris blocking road access," the company stated. "Our primary focus at this stage is to remove any hazards and assess the damage so that our crews can access the site of an outage and begin to safely make the repairs. Due to the extent of damage, restoration work is expected to continue into the weekend in the hardest hit areas."
As of 4 p.m. Friday, over 160,000 Ohio customers were still without power, including outages in the following counties:
Columbiana: 6,812
Cuyahoga: 46,228
Geauga: 16,525
Lake: 33,698
Lorain: 4,891
Lucas: 1,118
Mahoning: 11,306
Portage: 19,457
Stark: 1,202
Summit: 9,225
Trumbull: 7,204
See a current outage map and county-by-county outage information here.
Wickliffe, in Lake County, which has the second-highest number of outages in Northeast Ohio, is opening the Wickliffe Community Center Friday night from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. for people needing to charge their phones and other devices, according to a Facebook post from the police department. Coffee and water will be available, and the other amenities at the center will be available for residents in need.
Customers who have not already reported an outage are encouraged to do so by calling 1-888-LIGHTSS (544-4877), texting OUT to LIGHTS (544487) or by clicking "Report Outage" on their website.
Downed and low-hanging power lines are dangerous — FirstEnergy says to stay at least 30 feet away and call 911 to report downed lines immediately.
More information on outages, using a backup generator safely and more can be found here.
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