TOLEDO, Ohio — Just when a record-tying heat wave hit the region Wednesday, many residents found themselves without electricity they need to get relief from sweltering temperatures.
Some customers lost power during and after the heavy storms that moved through the region Monday night. Others have lost power throughout the day Wednesday.
FirstEnergy reported Wednesday afternoon that an issue with a substation along Dorr Street caused an outage that affects 6,000 customers.
"Crews are onsite addressing the exact cause and will make necessary repairs as quickly and safely as possible," Senior Communications Representative Lauren Siburkis said. "We should have a better idea of when they expect to restore power to those customers soon, but we are asking that customers prepare to be without power through the evening hours just to be safe."
As of 4 p.m. -- shortly after Toledo unofficially recorded a record-tying high temperature of 96 degrees -- local power companies were reporting tens of thousands of customers were without electricity.
Consumers Energy, in Michigan, reported more than 100 outages affecting more than 17,000 customers.
FirstEnergy was reporting scattered outages, mostly in west and south Toledo, affecting more than 31,000 customers.
AEP, which services areas outside of Toledo, reported scattered outages as well, mainly in Putnam County, affecting several dozen customers. Statewide, AEP was reporting that more than 128,000 customers were affected by outages late Tuesday afternoon.
AEP Ohio customers who are currently without power will likely have to wait until Thursday or Friday to get their power back. The energy company said its system was impacted by severe storms Monday night, which knocked out some of its large transmission lines.
Due to the extreme heat on Tuesday, some of the remaining lines became overloaded, causing the company to take customers offline throughout the day to protect the system and reduce the risk of longer, widespread outages, according to AEP Ohio.
This is a developing story.
More on WTOL:
