CLEVELAND — Cleveland resident Robert Carillio said he couldn’t believe how many tourist areas of downtown Cleveland were left in darkness due to street light outages just days before. the start of the NBA All-Star Game long weekend.
Carillio reported light outages in West Huron near Tower City, on Prospect Avenue near West 3rd Street, West 9th Street at Johnson Court, at Mall B near the Marriott Hotel and in front of the Huntington Cleveland Convention Center.
He believes all the darkness is creating a safety issue and could negatively impact tourism, business revenue and perception of the city as Cleveland steps into the global spotlight Feb. 18-20.
“It doesn’t bode well for establishing that connectivity that we want here,” Carillio said. “So it’s a safety issue when certain areas are plunged into darkness.”
“If people don’t feel safe, they’re not going to support businesses, they’re not going to support businesses, they’re not going to feel safe walking to and from those businesses.”
News 5 shot video confirming all outages and reported them to Cleveland Public Power and the Illuminating Company. News 5 also reported the outages to Cleveland Ward 16 Councilman and Public Utilities Committee Chairman Brian Kazy.
Kazy confirmed that a Cleveland Public Power main power line had failed, causing a significant portion of downtown lighting outages. Kazy told News 5 that major CPP reliability improvements are underway as the city conducts a comprehensive assessment of facilities in 2022 to improve services.
“2022 for the Utilities Committee and the City of Cleveland is the year of the CPP,” Kazy said. “The facility assessment will tell us what needs to be done, what doesn’t need to be done, what we need to work on. And once we have that document in hand, it’s off to the races.
“We want residents to be involved and report issues, we can’t deal with issues unless we know about them, we can’t be everywhere all the time, so the eyes and ears are always the residents.”
The Illuminating Company released a statement in response to our story:
The Illuminating Company’s utility crews have spent countless hours performing enhanced inspections, maintenance and upgrades on our equipment to help ensure Cleveland shines as brightly as possible during NBA All-Weekend. Star.
Over the past year, utility crews have inspected underground vaults and assessed equipment to ensure electricity continues to flow safely and reliably during one of the world’s most televised events. professional basketball.
The company also installed new automated equipment and technology at substations and along power lines that serve NBA All-Star venues and surrounding areas to harden the system against extended outages. To help ensure system reliability wherever crowds are likely to go, aerial and underground inspections were conducted in tourist areas of the city, including Tremont and Ohio City.
Cleveland Public Power has pledged that repairs to the lighting outages will be completed before the start of NBA All-Star Weekend and issued the following statement:
Cleveland Public Power has been working on streetlight troubleshooting for the past two weeks, with much of that work downtown. We have a charger that is down and crews are working to fix it today. We expect all lights to be working properly before All-Star Weekend begins.
Still, Carillio is concerned if all of Cleveland’s lighting agencies don’t work together to identify problems, downtown outages will be a chronic problem.
“I reported this stuff, I reported this stuff and nothing is done,” Carillio said. “When someone calls and says it’s not my problem, it’s RPC, it’s Edison, it’s the city, it’s ODOT. I mean nothing gets done if there is no coordination.
