В Лейквуде признали, что замена аварийной электросети потребует 7–9 лет

19 Newsmakers Episode 14: Lakewood power outage fight with FirstEnergy Councilman Tom Bullock says grid failures are a matter of life and death CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Every Monday, 19 News anchor Brian Duffy interviews the people who are shaping the present and future of Northeast Ohio. This week we check in with Lakewood city councilman Tom Bullock, who is among the city leaders pressing FirstEnergy for a fix to power outages that have affected the city for years. The outages date back several years but intensified last summer when high temperatures overwhelmed the city’s aging electrical grid. Subsequently, Lakewood mayor Meghan George and other leader began demanding answers from First Energy by taking their complaints to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, known as PUCO. PUCO subsequently sent letters to FirstEnergy asking the company to address the problems and produce a plan. Improvements have been made, but Bullock got the answer everyone in Lakewood was looking for when he attended a luncheon featuring FirstEnergy CEO Brian Tierney. Bullock said he spoke with Tierney afterward, and Tierney told him the entire grid in Lakewood needed to be replaced. That’s the good news, the bad is that it will take 7-9 years to complete. Bullock: outages are “life and death” Bullock, who will join 19 Newsmakers, said the outages amount to more than an inconvenience. “It is a life and death matter, a commodity that takes care of your food and your medicine, your sick or elderly parent or some other relative with a chronic condition, or a newborn,” Bullock said. “And if we can’t see coming that the equipment that we plan our lives around is going to stop working abruptly and we don’t know for how long, there is also an economic stress and an emotional stress and a strain.” Watch 19 Newsmakers as we break down the very latest in Lakewood as they try to get answers on the power grid issues. New episodes of “19 Newsmakers” are available weekly wherever you find podcasts. Streaming every Monday at 6:30 p.m. on 19 News platforms. Copyright 2026 WOIO. All rights reserved.