‘Been tough’: Tornado damage cleanup ongoing in NE Ohio

CUYAHOGA and LAKE COUNTIES, Ohio (WJW) – It’s been five days since severe weather devastated Northeast Ohio communities, knocking out power for a significant portion of residents.

Gov. Mike DeWine declared a State of Emergency for eight counties in Ohio on Saturday, mobilizing resources to expedite recovery efforts, while line workers from 17 states continue to race against the clock to restore services for roughly 10,500 customers awaiting electricity restoration, as of 9:30 p.m Sunday.

FirstEnergy Spokeswoman Lauren Siburkis said that 90% of customers have seen their power restored, a tremendous challenge given the widespread damage. Now crews are focusing on outages in areas that are more isolated.

“A lot of tree damage and a lot of this tree damage is in hard to access areas,” Siburkis said. “So, in some cases, we’re not able to use our bucket truck to get out, to get back into these hard to access areas. And instead, our line workers have to rely on their climbing skills and manually climb up that pole and make the repairs without the use of their bucket truck. So, some of this work is very labor intensive and as a result, a little bit more time consuming.”

Residents in Willoughby Hills are among the largest portion still without power. Resident Joe Frankhauser said they’re managing but it’s been frustrating.

“I work from home, and we have no internet connection,” he said. “So, it’s like having your arms chopped off. And so, I’ve had to find places to go work that have Wi-Fi, it’s been tough. We’re getting by. The neighbors on the street have all been excellent. If you need something, they have it. We’ve been through this enough times to know that you just have to cope with it and keep moving.”

Siburkis said FirstEnergy is in the final push to restore power, something she said is moving well-ahead of initial estimates.

“Initially, we had our global estimated time of restoration set for Wednesday and we were able to pull that in two days,” Siburkis said. “And so, we hope to have the majority of customers back up and running by tomorrow evening.”

The State of Emergency declaration puts a spotlight on the need for resources across the eight impacted counties. Cuyahoga County EMA Planning Director Kevin Friis said that will help cities and communities recover faster, while potentially receiving relief funding.

“We are recognizing that this is a major incident and that we are requesting additional resources,” he explained. “We’re really opening it up to further assessment of the damage with both state teams and potentially federal teams just coming in to actually identify how much debris there is. What the process is going to be for cleaning up that debris and ultimately disposing of it.”

FEMA is being asked to come to NE Ohio to conduct a damage assessment. County EMAs are in the process of working with local communities to conduct public damage assessments for potential reimbursement.

“For our communities, the cities and other governments to get reimbursed for all of the cleanup effort,” Friis said. “So, all of the overtime, all of the trucks, the manpower, all of that, and that is looking like we’re likely going to hit that target.”

Damage assessments related to homeowners, businesses, renters, and non-critical private non-profit organizations, please contact your County Emergency Management Agency Offices, per the governor’s office.

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