NORTHEAST OHIO – Storms slammed northeast Ohio late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, bringing high winds and heavy rains, which caused flash flooding and the loss of power in some areas.
More than 40,000 residents in Cuyahoga County were without power as of 7:30 a.m., according to FirstEnergy’s outage map. Residents across northeast Ohio have dealt with significant outages over the last 24 hours, as extreme heat caused outages to about 55,000 people on Monday, according to FirstEngery.
The hardest hit areas are Lakewood and Cleveland, which both have more than 10,000 residents without power.
Flooding is also a significant concern and flash flood warnings are in effect in Cuyahoga County and northeastern Lorain County until 9 a.m., and for eastern Medina County, Summit County, and western Stark County until 11 a.m.
In Lakewood, high water closed West 117th Street between Berea and Madison Road. The water was so high that two cars were completely submerged on the road. The drivers of both cars were able to get out of the cars without injury, according to Lakewood police.
On Interstate 480, flooding closed two eastbound lanes at Brook Park Road. On Interstate 90, the right lane of the westbound lanes closed near the Prospect Avenue exit because of high water.
In Medina County, Route 303 closed between State Road and state route 94. [ For a complete list of traffic incidents, visit our daily traffic report: http://5.wews.com/UpK ]
The high water forced the RTA to shut down the airport train station in Brookpark at about 3:15 a.m. Passengers traveling through that area had to use replacement buses until the water could be removed from the airport tunnel. All other RTA train lines are running on schedule, according to a company spokeswoman.
