Kaitlyn Super and her 13-year-old dog spent the majority of the weekend holed up in her car with the air conditioner blasting.
"He's super heat intolerant," Super said. "I had to put ice packs on him overnight. None of us got sleep. I even put him in the shower with me with some cold water. It was a struggle."
It was the second time in a week that Super, a 34-year-old Lakewood resident, lost power for hours as temperatures held steady in the upper 80s and 90s.
Lakewood residents, business owners and public officials say they've had it with the frequent outages.
"Help us hold First Energy accountable and compel them to finally, FINALLY make the necessary upgrades to our crumbling infrastructure," Mahall's, a bowling alley, bar and music venue posted on social media Saturday after canceling shows because of the outages.
Cleveland City Councilmember Charles Slife, whose Ward 17 includes far West Side neighborhoods bordering Lakewood, said the inconsistencies in extreme weather have a major impact on the community.
"There are people who are, you know, trying to work from home," Slife said. "There are people who take oxygen, businesses have to close for the day, people multiple times have to throw out the entire refrigerators, people's air conditioning and appliances get fried. This can really add up."
Unlike much of the rest of the city, which uses the city-owned Cleveland Public Power, Slife's and other border neighborhoods are reliant on FirstEnergy.
Slife blames the utilities company, which was embroiled in a recent bribery scandal that landed the former Ohio House Speaker in prison, for what a state agency called a misuse of a grid-modernization fee that collected $456 million from Ohioans between 2017 and 2019.
"That money was supposed to be for infrastructure improvements and audits by the (Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, or PUCO) are unable to determine how any of that money were spent, let alone for infrastructure," Slife said. "So, people paid an unlawful fee, expecting their infrastructure to be improved and that wasn't even done."
Slife was one of several public officials, including Lakewood Mayor Meghan George, who last week signed a letter to the state's public utilities commission demanding action be taken to improve FirstEnergy's public infrastructure.
"For the past year, FirstEnergy has fundamentally and repeatedly failed in that duty, with frequent and widespread power losses across the near west side communities of Cuyahoga County in Cleveland and Lakewood," George wrote in the letter. "These losses are not explained by weather, acts of God, or any other excusable factors. They are clearly the fault of FirstEnergy’s corporate ineptitude and apathy."
It's not the first time public officials have raised alarms. After storms and tornadoes last summer brought widespread damage to the area, FirstEnergy worked to replace hundreds of power lines and poles as some residents languished for weeks without power. In the year since, residents and officials have complained of more frequent outages, especially in extreme weather.
In January, Slife said he and Brian Kazy, whose Cleveland ward also borders Lakewood, sent a letter to PUCO outlining similar concerns.
"I want the PUCO to require FirstEnergy to provide clear and definitive information as to the status of their electric grid," Slife said. "We need FirstEnergy to show to the consumers what the state of their grid is. And with that information, the PUCO needs to compel improvements to it as necessary."
He said neither Cleveland nor Lakewood have the jurisdiction to compel the utilities company to do so; that responsibility lies with PUCO.
In a response letter sent Tuesday, PUCO's chair Jenifer French told George, Kazy and Slife it had opened an investigation into the outages.
"As you are keenly aware, not only can power outages affect the daily operations of the businesses in your community and pose significant inconveniences to your constituents, but they also pose a serious health and safety threat to your community," French wrote in the letter provided to Ideastream. "As a former Westerville City Council member myself, who was responsible for the health and well-being of my own community, I take the concerns in your letter very seriously."
In a written statement, FirstEnergy said infrastructure improvements are coming:
"We understand the recent power outages experienced by our Lakewood customers have caused frustration in the community," a spokesperson wrote. "Local infrastructure improvements in Lakewood are planned as part of our multi-year, multi-billion-dollar Energize365 investment initiative to provide long-term solutions that support a more resilient, modern electric system."
But for those like Super, who wondered in a viral TikTok post if her move back from California was a mistake due to the "failing" power infrastructure, they don't want to wait years.
"I've had like four refrigerators of groceries that I've had to throw away and replace and some people can't afford to do that," Super told Ideastream. "We pay to be comfortable in our homes, and it's kind of crazy that when you don't have power how hard life can get."
