(Cleveland) - The snow from Tuesday's storm is over, but for tens of thousands of FirstEnergy customers, their homes are still dark and cold.
At the height of the storm, over 50,000 homes and businesses were without electricity in Northeast Ohio due to the weight of snow and ice on power lines, and on tree limbs that fell on power lines.
Wednesday morning, FirstEnergy reported that 48,000 homes and businesses were still without power. This is one of those situations in which power crews have to string each line individually to restore as few as one customer at a time. It is a time-consuming process.
When the storm was at its peak, FirstEnergy couldn't even give an estimate on when power would be restored. They are now saying that for most customers, it will be by 11 p.m. on Thursday.
Geauga County was the worst hit area, with 45% of customers out as of Wednesday morning. Cuyahoga County has about 4% out, and Lake County, about 5% of customers. Ashtabula County has about 7% out. Other Northeast Ohio counties have only a handful of scattered outages.
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