![A cold front brought winds reaching up to 60 mph through parts of Northeast Ohio Frday. [Olga Enger / Shutterstock]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0c9d39a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/980x551+0+0/resize/840x472!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F3%2F26%2Fshutterstock_1043194627.jpg)
Crews are expected to be working well into Saturday to repair downed power lines and resolve outages after high winds Friday morning caused damage across Northeast Ohio.
After a brief flirtation with spring earlier in the week, a cold front moved through the region, bringing with it gusts that reached 60 mph in some areas.
At the height of the wind storm, about 121,000 FirstEnergy customers in the region were without power, said power company spokesperson Lauren Siburkis. About 12,800 were still waiting to be reconnected as of Friday afternoon, according to FirstEnergy’s outage map.
Crews expect to have restored power to most of Greater Cleveland by Saturday afternoon, Siburkis said.
“It is a time-consuming process, but our crews are working as quickly and safely as they can to get everybody back up and running,” Siburkis said.
Some Northeast Ohio school districts were forced to cancel classes Friday or return to remote learning due to the outages.
In Akron, five of the 47 public schools were without power and canceled classes. Cleveland Metropolitan School District shifted two pre-K facilities to asynchronous remote work. Parma City Schools canceled programming for the entire district Friday.
Crews are still assessing the damages in Summit County, Siburkis said, where wind speedsd exceeded 60 mph early Friday morning. Power restoration estimates should be available by Friday evening, Siburkis said.
“After a storm like this, our main priority is clearing the hazards before we can even begin making the repairs to get customers back up and running,” Siburkis said.
The high winds that knocked out the power also delayed initial repair efforts, Siburkis said. Crews can’t operate bucket trucks if winds are more than 40 mph, she said.
“Unfortunately, we experienced high winds throughout most of the day,” Siburkis said. “But at this time, our crews are really ready to hit the ground running in making those repairs.”
About 3,000 Cleveland Public Power customers also were without power on Friday morning, according to a tweet from the utility provider. A majority of the affected households have since been reconnected, CPP said, and issues with feeders have been resolved. But several residents responded to the tweets to report additional outages into the afternoon.