Parma commuters woke up to a mess Monday after a utility pole at the busy Ridge Road and Snow Road intersection snapped near the top, caught fire, and forced a full closure of the crossroads while crews scrambled to make repairs. The early-morning break followed a round of gusty, stormy weather that had already littered neighborhoods with downed trees and broken limbs and knocked out power to some residents. Nearby shops managed to stay open, but employees said the blackout and the blocked intersection were already eating into business hours and leaving customers bewildered about how to get in and out.
Fiery Pole Halts Traffic At Ridge And Snow
According to Cleveland 19, the pole snapped and ignited around 2:30 a.m. Monday and left about 400 customers in Parma without power as of 2:30 p.m. that day. Rebekah Less, who works at Totally Tan near the intersection, told the station she saw the pole “literally just by the wires” and said the outages had forced the salon to close early Friday and remain closed Saturday before reopening Sunday. The intersection stayed blocked while utility crews assessed the damage and secured the scene, turning one of Parma’s main crossings into an overnight dead end.
Outages Spread As Thousands Of Crews Fan Out
Utility officials and local television reports said the snapped pole was just one of many failures tied to a regional storm system that knocked out power across Northeast Ohio. FirstEnergy told News 5 Cleveland that more than 3,000 crews and contractors were deployed to clear fallen trees and repair lines, a mobilization company leaders described as unusually large. The sheer scale of the damage stretched repair timelines and left some neighborhoods waiting longer than usual for full restoration.
High Winds Slow Repairs And Raise Fire Risk
The National Weather Service office in Cleveland had issued wind advisories and a hazardous weather outlook for the period, warning that gusty winds can snap limbs and stress aging poles, conditions that raise the odds of outages and fires. Those alerts help explain why crews first focused on shutting off power to dangerous lines and clearing immediate hazards before getting to the actual repair work. The high winds also limited how safely bucket trucks and other heavy equipment could operate, which slowed restoration in certain trouble spots.
Ongoing Cleanup And Traffic Headaches…