MANSFIELD — The two primary electrical suppliers in Richland County flipped the switch back on for about 5,000 more customers on Thursday.
But 4,334 customers in the county remained without power as of Friday morning, according to websites for FirstEnergy and AEP Ohio.
Both websites estimate electricity will be back on for nearly all of its Richland County customers by midnight Friday.
There were almost 26,000 local customers left in the dark Monday night after powerful thunderstorms, including a F1 tornado in southeast Richland County, roared through north central Ohio overnight Monday.
The storms, including straight lines of 65 to 70 mph, uprooted and knocked down trees, busted power poles and and snarled and downed power lines with all of the debris.
Since then, it’s been a slow slog for line workers who began by assessing damage and then began the process of fixing a shattered electric grid that bore the brunt of Monday night’s storms.
In many instances, forestry crews had to remove the tree debris before power restoration crews could make repairs.
About 26,000 Richland County customers lost power on Monday night, a number that was reduced to 9,400 by Thursday afternoon.
FirstEnergy still had 2,696 customers in Richland County as of Friday morning. AEP Ohio had 1,638.
In terms of percentage of accounts restored locally, FirstEdison has set a quicker pace than AEP, which serves far fewer customers in the county.
The local misery has been compounded by the fact this has been the hottest week of the year thus far with temps reaching the 90s and heat indexes topping 100.
The lack of power have left Richland County residents sweltering and trying to figure out to save their food in refrigerators and freezers that have powered during since Monday night.
If there is a bright spot in a week filled with no light, it’s that no more storms are expected this weekend and it’s going to cool off.
The high today in Mansfield is expected to top at 81 degrees, followed by 69 on Saturday and 72 on Sunday.
Firelands Electric Cooperative update
As of Friday morning, the cooperative had 46 member-consumers remaining without power, primarily located in Ashland and Richland counties.
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.
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.
