CLEVELAND, Ohio — It was early January when we first reported multiple power outages across West Park and Lakewood.
Now, they’re happening again—and residents are fed up.
RELATED: Lakewood residents want to know why their power keeps going out
When the power goes out, it can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. In January, residents were worried about the cold. Now, it’s the heat, with the latest outage happening Tuesday night.
News 5 first spoke with Candice Gibbons earlier this year, and she had a clear message for FirstEnergy: “Fix it,” Gibbons said.
Now, four months later, she’s exhausted after experiencing more power outages—this time on Saturday night.
“It's a lot. It really is. It's just it's getting old fast,” said Gibbons.
The latest outage occurred Tuesday night, affecting more than 11,000 FirstEnergy customers, including Gibbons, around 9:30 p.m. That came just days after the previous outage on Saturday, when she says the power went out around 7:30 p.m. and didn’t return until about 11 p.m.
“We had to sit outside, and we I have a fire pit back there. So we sat and sat around there, and it was cold. Saturday was cold,” said Gibbons.
But this isn’t the first time. Back in late December or early January, she says the power went out up to 15 times. After a few quiet months, the outages returned.
“I would ask them, why can't you fix this permanent on a permanent basis,” said Gibbons.
News 5 reached out to First Energy, which said in a statement that a transformer at a substation in the area caused Saturday night’s outage.
In a statement, they wrote:
“Crews responded and restored power as quickly and safely as possible to about 4,600 customers affected…”
This is what they said in regards to Tuesday night's outage:
"Lineworkers were able to isolate an equipment issue and restore power to affected customers within about 30 minutes last night. Crews are still investigating what caused the outage."
But for residents like Gibbons, that explanation isn’t enough.
“I understand the grid's pretty old. That's what Slife told me, the councilman. But that's no excuse for us to have this it is happening. If it's a transformer or whatever it is, fix it. That's my thing,” said Gibbons.
Gibbons says she’s had to throw out food more than once due to the outages.
“We've lost meat, and I had some popsicles for the baby in the house, and they all melted. I've had all kinds of things, the eggs, I don't trust the eggs then, and I pitch them,” said Gibbons.
She also worries that someone—herself or an elderly neighbor—could get hurt moving around in the dark or suffer in the heat.
“It gets hot and no fans. What are we going to do? So we have to go out to the car. It could get cool or heat,” said Gibbons.
She’s still asking for the same thing she asked back in January: to get the problem fixed.
“It's not, it's not fun. It's you're sitting there in the dark. You're scrambling around,” said Gibbons.
News 5 has reached out to FirstEnergy again to learn more about what caused Tuesday night’s outage, which left more than 11,000 in the dark. We’re still waiting to hear back.
