Mark Oprea
Many areas of West 100th Street in Cleveland’s West Boulevard neighborhood were still without electricity Thursday.
The three tornadoes came quickly on Tuesday afternoon and disappeared just as quickly.
In Avon Lake, a storm made landfall near Wedgewood Drive at 4:15 a.m. and destroyed homes in the Rocky River nine miles away. Another storm made landfall on Holland Road 10 minutes later and tore the Brook Park Rec Center to pieces. The third, an EF-1 storm — with winds averaging 100 miles per hour — came out of Brecksville and fizzled out on Peninsula.
Elsewhere, winds of 60, 70 and 80 miles per hour continued to rage across the region, downing trees and power lines and causing widespread damage.
Hundreds of thousands of people were without power on Wednesday morning. In Cleveland, about one in five people – 67,000 people – were still without power on Thursday afternoon, according to outage maps.
While utility workers move through the city, clearing fallen branches, restoring wires and restarting substations, residents are left to deal with the aftermath of the blackout. Many need to find water or escape the balmy night heat, others need electricity to keep ventilators running, others still need to power the laptops and phones they need to do their daily work. Food is no longer cheap.
A city without power, an inconvenience for some, a matter of life and death for others, could get much worse. As for the 56,000 FirstEnergy customers in Cleveland who are still without power, the days without light could last until the middle of the month. “We anticipate power will be restored to the majority of customers before 11:30 p.m. on August 14,” the company’s outage map for residents seeking answers reads.
For many Scene interviewed over the next two days, Tuesday’s storms evoked images of last August, when an EF-1 tornado touched down near Carnegie Avenue on Cleveland’s east side. Fortunately, power was restored to most cities within two or three days.
But this week’s disaster, which left some desperately searching for motel rooms and others staying with friends or parents, leaves a disturbing feeling that the situation is getting increasingly dire.
“This is the worst thing I’ve seen in my life,” a Cleveland Public Power employee who asked not to be identified told Scene, echoing what City Council members said in committee meetings on Wednesday.
On average, seven times as many CPP feeders (or main power lines) that carry electricity to neighborhood substations were down than in an average Cleveland storm.
“I’ve never seen more than five to 10 lines go down at once,” they said. “In this storm, it was more than 70. And that’s just CPP.”
Although the utility has restored power to tens of thousands, 11,000 customers were still without electricity on Thursday.
FirstEnergy did not respond to an email seeking comment Thursday, but a spokesperson told Axios Tuesday’s storms were the worst weather event to hit northeast Ohio since 1993. And on August 14? That’s the worst-case scenario. “Many customers will see service restored sooner due to the extent of the damage in their area,” they claimed.
That response was unacceptable to many, including Assemblywoman Bride Sweeney and other lawmakers from Cuyahoga, Lorain and Geauga counties, who have called on the governor to declare a state of emergency and provide more funding. “I call on Governor DeWine and First Energy to do more to help our local communities and get traffic lights, businesses and neighborhoods back up and running,” she wrote on X along with a copy of her letter.
Meanwhile, thousands were trying to get their bearings and plan for a relatively unclear week. They packed food in coolers or texted friends to arrange times to charge their phones. They may not have a signal because networks are overloaded. The elderly and disabled need help. People with asthma and other respiratory problems need air conditioning.
Mark Oprea
Women at Nueva Vida Church on West 25th Street make pork sandwiches and chicken soup for those without electricity.
Mark Oprea
Christopher Martinez, the city’s Hispanic commissioner, and the Rev. José Reyes balked at the prospect that the city could be without power until Aug. 14. “Unacceptable,” Martinez said.
“The problem is that no one has phone reception and no data,” said 29-year-old music teacher Samantha Loomis as she walked her dog on Belle Avenue in Lakewood.
She said she and her boyfriend couldn’t reach their property manager to figure out how to find water — their system requires an electric pump — and turned to friends to help clean up the mess. Loomis said she considered a hotel stay, but she cringes at the cost of a week.
“We’ve asked around,” Loomis said. “The problem is that no one has electricity.”
Further west, on the corner of Lorain Avenue and West Blvd., lives 32-year-old Heather Grubb, who left a homeless shelter on Thursday morning in the hope of staying with a friend. A tree had destroyed the shelter. The air conditioning was broken. The water was no longer running.
“We’re just here trying to make some money,” Grubb said in front of a fallen tree. “I mean, I have kidney failure. I have thyroid cancer. I really don’t know what to do right now.”
The long delay in restoring power and the lack of transparency from FirstEnergy have prompted churches and nonprofits in the area to do everything they can to provide food, hydration and healthcare to the population over the next week or two.
That’s why Christopher Martinez, City Hall’s Hispanic representative, reached out to Pastor José Reyes at Iglesia Nueva Vida on the corner of West 25th and Clark Avenue in Clark-Fulton. 15th District Councilwoman Jasmin Santana was equally baffled by the expected wait time for FirstEnergy and worked hand-in-hand with Martinez to transform Nueva Vida into a sort of emergency shelter.
On Thursday afternoon, women prepared pork sandwiches and chicken soup in Nueva Vida’s kitchen while others played dominoes outside and children drank Gatorade. “What I’m worried about is the children,” Martinez told Scene. “They need water. They need juices. They need food. Babies need warm milk.”
“And,” he added, looking inside, “this man here has a breathing problem – fortunately we were able to provide him with a machine.”
Martinez grimaced as he thought about what the next week would look like and how area restaurants like the Blue Palm and La Playa could continue to donate food and water to about 560 people nearby.
And the prospect of staying away for another six days?
“Unacceptable,” said Martinez. “Unacceptable.”
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