Photo: Getty Images
OUTAGE UPDATE: 6/16/22 at 9:00PM — Firelands Electric crews have been working tirelessly in extreme weather since the storm hit assessing damage, identify problems, and get power restored. As of 7:30AM, the cooperative had 46 member-consumers remaining without power, primarily located in Ashland and Richland counties.
Damage from this week’s strong storms is being compared to the 2005 ice storm based on the amount of widespread destruction. The powerful winds and thunderstorms swept through the cooperative’s service territory beginning late Monday night and extending into the early morning hours Tuesday, causing widespread damage to trees and power lines.
Strong storms swept through central Ashland County again yesterday afternoon, causing further destruction of trees and power lines. The cooperative has been utilizing all of its employees and is doing everything humanly possible to get power restored.
Firelands has been utilizing assistance from multiple tree contractors, as well as several line crews from other Ohio electric cooperatives, North Central Electric Cooperative out of Attica and South Central Power Company, with crews out of both Lancaster and Hillsboro. These additional crews have aided Firelands in its restoration efforts and are quadrupling manpower efforts to get power restored.
A few members receiving their power from the Ashland, Jeromesville, New London, and Fitchville substations, whose service remains unrestored, will likely be re-energized today. With the cooperative’s added work force, crews are hopeful that members receiving their power from the Coulter and Mifflin substations will also be restored yet today, if all goes well.
The cooperative appreciates its member’s patience and understanding as work continues. If you are a Firelands Electric member-consumer without power and have not already reported your outage, please contact the cooperative’s toll-free outage hotline at 1-800-533-8658 or by using Firelands’ SmartHub application. Outage details are available at https://epay.firelandsec.com/maps/public/OutageWebMap.
Firelands Electric Cooperative, a Touchstone Energy Cooperative, is a member-owned, not-for-profit electric utility serving more than 9,100 homes and businesses in rural areas of Ashland, Huron, Lorain, and Richland counties that ranks among the highest energy utilities in the country for customer satisfaction. Visit the cooperative’s website, www.firelandsec.com, Facebook page and Twitter feed, to learn more about reliable and affordable power.