Rain, ice, and snow affected many in the area Thursday afternoon and into Friday morning. Over the past 24 hours, Firelands Electric Cooperative experienced over 30 outages affecting approximately 1,500 members in Ashland, Richland, and Huron counties.
Ice-covered limbs, combined with saturated ground conditions, resulted in numerous downed trees and a car-pole accident. Firelands Electric crews worked throughout the night to restore power to cooperative members. The extremely wet conditions often made it difficult to access power lines. In several cases, it was necessary for crews to utilize tracked skid loaders, tire chains on trucks, and other specialized equipment to reach and repair the outages.
As of 8:00 a.m. Friday morning, only a handful of members remained without power. The cooperative’s crews continue to clean up the remaining fallen limbs and debris today.
“I have so much respect for our linemen, and for their hard work and commitment to restoring power for our members,” says Firelands Electric Cooperative’s General Manager Dan McNaull.
As a reminder, please use extreme caution while traveling during and after storms. Notify Firelands Electric Cooperative of any downed power lines within the cooperative’s service territory by contacting 1-800-533-8658. Outage updates are available at Firelands Electric’s website,www.FirelandsEC.com, or stay connected with the co-op through its Facebook page,https://www.facebook.com/FirelandsElectric, and Twitter feed, https://twitter.com/Firelands.