The lights are back on in the greater Akron area after strong winds raged through the region last Tuesday and torrential flooding occurred on Thursday.
The situation is different in the greater Cleveland area and in the counties in far northeast Ohio, where nearly 6,000 households have been without power for almost a week.
At a press conference on Monday, Torrence Hinton, president of FirstEnergy Ohio, said crews had made remarkable progress considering that about 400,000 homes were without power due to severe storms that spawned four confirmed tornadoes in northern Ohio.
Hinton credits the 7,500 workers at Akron-based FirstEnergy and from 17 different states who worked 16-hour shifts and made such progress, especially over the weekend, that power was restored to nearly 200,000 customers.
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When will FirstEnergy restore power?
Work, Hinton said, would continue around the clock to restore power to those still without electricity.
“We understand that they are frustrated and tired,” he said.
The goal is to restore power to most customers by midnight Monday.
However, for some customers it may take longer.
The challenge now is that many of the people without electricity live in remote areas where the damage is extensive or difficult to reach.
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Customers are urged to visit firstenergycorp.com for the latest developments and sources for free ice and water.
Hinton said that things that “Mother Nature can destroy in minutes” take much, much longer to repair and replace.
The emergency services have already replaced around 400 masts and 58,000 meters of power lines that were knocked down by the storm.
According to FirstEnergy, the last time this many customers were without power in Ohio was in 1993, when about 300,000 people were affected.
Once power is restored to the last customer, they will begin investigating what went well and what didn’t in such emergencies, Hinton said.
“We simply ask for patience,” he said.
