Power outage leaves thousands of Northeast Ohioans in the dark

CLEVELAND - Earlier on Monday, more than 55,000 people in Cuyahoga, Geauga and Richland counties lost power. But FirstEnergy reported at 8:15 p.m. less than 3,000 customers in the Cleveland area were in the dark, with a few scattered outages left in Summit and Geauga counties.

At 6:40 p.m., FirstEnergy reported in Mansfield alone, more than 10,000 people lost electricity, along with other surrounding communities.

According to FirstEnergy's outage map , lights went out at homes and businesses to more than 10,000 people in Beachwood, Brecksville, Chagrin Falls, Lyndhurst, Mayfield Heights, Solon and several other cities in Cuyahoga County around 2:45 p.m. FirstEnergy spokesman Mark Durbin said that outage could have been related to heat or the Geauga County power outage that occurred around that same time. Some 35,000 customers lost power there from an apparent problem with a circuit breaker in a substation.

Durbin encouraged people to call and report power outages to FirstEnergy and not to assume someone else has already contacted the utility company. FirstEnergy said they are working to restore power to the remaining homes and businesses left in the dark as quickly as possible.

The Richmond Heights Fire Department reported Richmond Town Square was without power and several people were stuck in an elevator at JCPenney as a result. There were no reported injuries.