CLEVELAND, Ohio — More than 50,000 FirstEnergy Corp. customers in Cuyahoga County had power restored this weekend, just days after storms slammed northeast Ohio and left the region in the dark.
As of Sunday, 24,224 customers were still without power, or 2% of FirstEnergy customers in the county. Nearly half of those people lived in Cleveland, the utility reported.
According to the Akron-based utility, nearly three-quarters of households in Cuyahoga County were without power. Some residents may not have lights in their homes until Wednesday or later.
Four tornadoes hit Cuyahoga County on Tuesday as a wave of heavy rain and storms rolled through the region, knocking out power lines, damaging homes and uprooting large trees. Initially, more than 300,000 homes in northeast Ohio were without power.
The number of those getting their service back began to rise quickly on Friday. About 78,000 customers were without power in Cuyahoga County as of Saturday morning, according to FirstEnergy.
Some cities still had parts of the city without power on Sunday. In Lakewood, for example, 4,139 people were without power, or 15 percent of FirstEnergy customers in the city. In Rocky River, 2,100 people were without power, or 20 percent of the utility’s customers in the city.
In other communities, the numbers dropped quickly. In Geauga County, 8,833 customers were without power by midday Saturday. A day later, the number was 4,452, or 11% of FirstEnergy customers in the county.
On Saturday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine declared a state of emergency in eight of the state’s counties due to the storms: Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Trumbull, Lake, Geauga, Lorain, Portage and Summit.
“We are here for the duration and will continue to help communities in Northeast Ohio recover from the damage left behind by the storm,” DeWine said in a statement.
