12,000 Lakewood Residents Without Power

Crews from the city of Lakewood will be working “around the clock” to clean up the wreckage from Hurricane Sandy.

And in Lakewood, there’s plenty of damage.

Wind gusts toppled dozens of trees, and uprooted a few others.

Those downed trees meant downed power lines and road closures around Lakewood. 

An estimated 12,000 Lakewood residents are without power. 

That’s about 25 percent of the city’s entire population. 

Mark Durbin, spokesperson for FirstEnergy, said that most customers in Northeast Ohio should have power again by the end of the week, though some areas — including Lakewood — will take into the weekend to repair.

He added that the company has adequate resources to handle the outages, though the company is seeking more.

High winds throughout the day Tuesday prevented electric company crews from using elevated “buckets” to make repairs. 

Mayor Michael Summers said he’s hopeful that some lines could be repaired as soon as tonight, but the city is still waiting for crews to arrive — from as far away as California, but several crews have been dispatched to the area from Missouri, Illinois and western Ohio. 

“Our crews will work through the evening” to clean up the damage, he said. “We’ve already made significant headway.”

The concentrated areas of outages reported include most residences north of Clifton Boulevard — the entire length of the city. 

However, Summers said there are also several “pockets” of outages scattered throughout Lakewood — including a large area in the center of town. 

Several streets were closed earlier in the day — including Clifton Boulevard, Lake and Nicholson avenues — but most have been reopened.

City fire officials began a door-to-door campaign in some high-rise apartment complexes in the Gold Coast neighborhood to check on the elderly. The city has also announced that it will open an “emergency reception center” at the Lawther Senior Center at 16024 Madison Avenue on Wednesday morning.

And the Red Cross is headed to Lakewood to help deliver hot meals to the city’s elderly residents.

While rains were steady on Tuesday, “flooding hasn’t been an issue,” Summers said.

However, some traffic signals are not working.

Summers said residents are encouraged to treat out-of-order traffic signals as a four-way stop.

“Other than not having power all over the city, we’re in pretty decent shape,” Summers said.

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