Strong storms tore through Northeast Ohio on Saturday, knocking out power to more than 12,000 customers by mid-afternoon and leaving drivers navigating dark traffic signals from Cuyahoga to Stark County. With more rain and wind in the forecast through the evening, utility crews are bracing for the outage count to climb even higher before the night is over.
According to the FOX 8 Cleveland WJW report, the FirstEnergy outage map showed more than 12,000 customers without service around 3:30 p.m. as the storms moved through the region. Stark County bore the brunt with nearly 4,000 outages, while Cuyahoga County reported 2,342 outages, Lake County recorded 2,645, and Portage County counted 2,581. Several thousand customers across Northeast Ohio in total were left waiting for the lights to come back on.
The storms arrived alongside a broader severe weather threat. The National Weather Service in Cleveland issued a flood watch for 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. across 10 Northeast Ohio counties, including Cuyahoga, Lake, Summit, Portage, Stark and Mahoning, warning that localized rainfall totals of 3 to 4 inches could trigger flash flooding. Separately, as reported by WKYC, the weather service tracked severe thunderstorm cells through Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake counties that produced wind gusts up to 60 mph — strong enough to snap tree branches and damage utility lines.
More Rain On the Way, Roads Already Snarled
Additional rain and storms were expected to continue through the evening, per the FOX 8 report, raising the possibility of further downpours and strong winds compounding the damage already done to the grid. With traffic signals knocked out in storm-hit neighborhoods, the Cleveland Division of Police reminded drivers via Facebook that any intersection with a dead signal must be treated as a four-way stop, a safety measure meant to prevent crashes while crews work to restore power…