As of 9 p.m. Tuesday night, the power has been restored to the majority of Cleveland's west side, where 40,000 people were without power for about four hours, according to Cleveland Public Power's Facebook page.
The West Bank of the Flats and other small pockets was still without power for a short time, but the repair was made within the following hour and a half. Everyone was back online by 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The Cleveland Fire Department responded to the electrical substation on W. 41st St. where Cleveland Public Power said a fire broke out, knocking out the power on the west side.
The substation erupted in flames and spewed out oil, according to CPP. Interim repairs were made to restore power, and the oil spill was cleaned up. CPP said the interim fix could be a permanent one and they are confident the repair will hold indefinitely. They are not expecting any other issues.
CPP said about 40,000 people were without power.
CPP is making investments in other fixes that are currently construction. Once these upgrades are made to the system, outage times are expected to be reduced.
News 5 had a crew in the area that witnessed accidents due to downed traffic lights from the outage. One accident occurred at Pearl and Dennison.
Several traffic lights are out of power, as a result, accidents like this one at Pearl and Dennison are popping up @WEWS pic.twitter.com/xVRwBfI9u8
— James Gherardi (@JamesGherardi) December 26, 2017
New Life Church located at 2327 Holmden Avenue offered overnight housing for those who needed a warm place to stay during the outage. Other warming shelters open Tuesday night can be found here.
The warming centers continue to be open Wednesday night.
