Destructive Winds Leave Thousands Without Power In Northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND — Wind gusts roared through Northeast Ohio on Sunday night and Monday morning, hitting speeds of nearly 50 mph. When the night passed, thousands of Northeast Ohioans awoke to find themselves unable to turn on the lights.

FirstEnergy reported that in its coverage area, which is most of Northern Ohio, more than 26,000 customers were without power at noon on Monday. Nearly 7,000 customers were in the dark in Cuyahoga County alone, based on the company's outages map.

With thousands of customers clamoring for their power to be restored, the company is now estimating that completing all of the needed repairs could take days. Most of Cuyahoga County is being told their power should be restored by 1 p.m. on Feb. 27.

(For more news like this, find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here. And like Patch on Facebook!)

Tree branches and the high-speed winds tore power lines down, leading to many of the outages.

"Our restoration process is designed to restore power safely and efficiently for affected customers. The priority for restoration starts with emergency services, including hospitals, police, fire and first aid. Priority is also given to circuits serving the largest number of customers, followed by restoration of service to individual homes," FirstEnergy said on its website.

The National Weather Service said the destructive winds should have calmed slightly overnight, and should be completely tamed by 1 p.m. on Monday.