Power is actively being restored around the clock to approximately 194,500 FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) customers in Northeast Ohio who remain without service following severe thunderstorms, wind, and tornadoes that swept through the area on Tuesday. While restoration efforts are expected to continue into next week, many customers will have power restored before that time.
Key statistics from the event include:
- More than 627,700 customers across FirstEnergy's footprint in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey lost power due to the storm.
- Four confirmed tornadoes with winds between 100-110 mph struck in the Illuminating Company and Ohio Edison service areas. Additionally, a wide area of damaging straight-line winds of 70-90 mph, known as a macroburst, struck roughly 225 square miles in Cuyahoga, Lake, and Geauga counties.
- More than 6,000 lineworkers, hazard responders, damage assessors, forestry crews, and other support personnel are assisting the restoration effort. FirstEnergy will continue to move other employees from across the company into Northeast Ohio as the threat from Tropical Storm Debby passes.
- To date, more than 350 broken poles have been identified in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, and Lorain counties. Crews are actively replacing these poles along with hanging hundreds of spans of wire as part of the restoration effort.
- Five staging sites have been set up across the greater Cleveland area to handle the influx of outside workers and help make the restoration process more efficient.
- More than a dozen sites have been set up to provide free water and ice to customers who remain without power.
Current outage updates as of 9:30 a.m. today include:
- The Illuminating Company: Approximately 322,000 Illuminating Company customers lost power from the storm; 192,300 remain without power. Power will be restored to most customers by 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 14.
- Ohio Edison: Power has been restored to 98% of approximately 118,100 Ohio Edison customers who lost power from the storm. The remaining 2,200 customers without power are expected to have service restored by 11 p.m. on Saturday.
As additional information about necessary repairs is understood, more detailed ETRs will be provided. Customers can view their current individual ETR for their particular outage by logging into their account at firstenergycorp.com or viewing the outage map at firstenergycorp.com/outages.
FirstEnergy follows a formal restoration process after severe weather focusing on repairs that address large numbers of customers before moving on to isolated issues. The restoration effort typically begins with transmission and substation facilities and then prioritizes critical facilities like hospitals and emergency response agencies.
Additionally, hundreds of isolated issues affect individual or small numbers of customers requiring crews to go to each location for repairs. Many isolated issues include repairs to "service drops," which are wires attached to homes delivering electricity from neighborhood power lines often damaged by fallen trees.
For updated information on current outages and tips for staying safe visit FirstEnergy's Power Center at firstenergycorp.com/outages.
To ensure safety when operating generators during outages:
1. Disconnect incoming home power while using generators.
2. Locate generators outside away from windows and vents.
FirstEnergy is dedicated to integrity and operational excellence serving customers in multiple states through one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems.
News Media Contact: Hannah Catlett – Ohio Edison (440) 554-5346