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Some Northeast Ohio Residents Still Without Power After High Winds Sunday

Power lines run crisscross the air above a street in Cleveland's Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. [Nick Castele / ideastream]
Power lines run crisscross the air above a street in Cleveland's Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood.

Some Northeast Ohio residents are still waiting for power to be restored following strong winds Sunday. More than 10,000 were still without power Monday afternoon.

More than 90 poles broke and more than 200 spans of power lines were down Monday, according to a tweet from FirstEnergy, with customer outages around 70,000 as of Monday morning. The National Weather Service reported Sunday gusts as high as 71 mph at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

The high winds knocked over trees around the region, said FirstEnergy spokesperson Lauren Siburkis, and repairs for the damage will require time.

“The widespread tree damage we experienced from this wind event was incredible,” Siburkis said. “You can imagine the damage it did to our system when they came down.”

Crews worked through the night Sunday to restore power and fix damage across the state. More crews were scheduled to go out and join repair efforts Monday, Siburkis said.

“These are very time-consuming repairs, which is why we anticipate this will be a multi-day restoration effort,” Siburkis said.

Cleveland-area customers should expect power to be restored by Wednesday, Siburkis said, while Akron residents should have power back by Thursday.

FirstEnergy and Illuminating Company customers experiencing an outage who has not yet reported it should do so, Siburkis said. Any low-hanging or downed wires should be reported and avoided, she said.

Cleveland Public Power workers have restored major feeders and hubs, according to the utility provider’s Twitter feed. Crews are dealing with scattered outages, CPP said, focusing first on downed wires before addressing individual homes and will work through the night to restore power.

"We understand it's been 24 hours or more and apologize for the inconvenience," CPP tweeted Monday afternoon.

Residents voiced discontent with the provider's response times in replys to the tweet, asking for updated estimates on when issues would fixed and pointing out the extended wait time.

Some residents complained that issues from power outages were compounded by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which prevents them from visiting friends or family in the area who have electricity.

CPP reported having difficulty receiving outage reports from customers by either website or phone early Monday, and encouraged residents to reach out through social media to report outages or ongoing issues.