MEDIA ADVISORY: Crews Make Progress Restoring Power to Customers Following Historic Storms

MEDIA ADVISORY
August 10, 2024 – 10:30 a.m.  

AKRON, Ohio – Thousands of workers from FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE), along with outside support from 17 states, continue working around the clock restoring power to customers across Greater Cleveland following historic storms on Aug. 6. Each day, service is being restored to large numbers of customers. In addition, significant progress removing trees and other debris is paving the way for the intricate work required to restore service in the hardest hit areas.

More than 627,700 customers across FirstEnergy’s footprint in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey lost power due to storms that brought multiple tornadoes and widespread areas of straight-line winds early in the week. Approximately 430,000 of those were in Northeast Ohio.

All of FirstEnergy’s Ohio crews were ready to respond when the storm hit Tuesday, as none had been sent south for response to Hurricane Debby. They now have been joined by outside assistance from 17 states – including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, New York, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia and Kansas – forming a contingent of approximately 7,570 total workers. Approximately 6,000 of those are working in The Illuminating Company territory, with approximately 1550 in Ohio Edison territory. As work is complete in one area, additional crews will move to assist The Illuminating Company.

Updates by electric company as of 10 a.m.:

• The Illuminating Company: Power has been restored to 198,400 of the approximately 310,000 customers in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake and Lorain counties who lost power due to the storms, and about 112,000 customers remain without service.
  
  While the global Estimated Time of Restoration (ETR) for the vast majority of customers is Wednesday, Aug. 14 at 11:30 p.m., most of the customers who are currently without power will have service restored prior to that time.
  
  As additional information about necessary repairs is understood, more detailed ETRs are being established. Customers can view their current individual ETR for their particular outage by logging into their account at firstenergycorp.com, texting STAT to 544487, or viewing the outage map at firstenergycorp.com/outages.
  
  
• Ohio Edison: Approximately 118,100 customers in northern and central Ohio lost power due to the storm, and power has been restored to more than 99% of them. The approximately 600 customers who remain without power are expected to have service restored by 11:00 p.m. tonight.
  

Customers who are without power can call 1-888-LIGHTSS (1-888-544-4877) or text OUT to 544487 to report their outage or click the "Outages" link on firstenergycorp.com.

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