CLEVELAND — FirstEnergy is still working to restore electricity to thousands in northeast Ohio following Tuesday’s tornadoes, and communities are in search for more than just power.
The Greater Cleveland Food Bank has been packed with locals who are in dire need of food after many people’s persihibles have spoiled without a working fridge. As of today, thousands of customers in Northern Ohio are still without power, according to FirstEnergy data, after more than 300,000 people initially lost power after the storms earlier this week.
“I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t sleeping right, I lost weight,” said Devona Ashbrook, a Cleveland resident.
Devona moved to the city from Colombus a year and a half ago and is currently living on the east side.
“I am the only resident at my address at the moment, but there’s eight of us on our street that didn’t have power,” she said.
Ashbrook said things immediately went south after winds started to pick up speed.
“We didn’t have power immediately from 4:30 until last night at 9:30, or 9 o’clock, we got our power back,” she said.
Now, she and others are at the food pantry, tring to recover their losses after the severe weather.
“I have no food, so I’m like, the power came back on so I’m going to get anything that I can that’s perishable now so I can eat until I get my food stamps next Friday,” Ashbrook said.
Karen Pozna is the director of communications at the Greater Cleveland Foodbank. She said they’ve noticed an influx of people in the last few days.
“We have seen an uptick over the past few days of people coming in to seek help,” Ponza said. “We’ve been providing a lot more shelf stable food items.”
The storm is like nothing they’ve ever seen before, Ponza said, but now they have a better idea of what to expect.
“If these kinds of storms tend to happen more, we’ll just make sure that we’re always prepared and make sure that we have a plan as how to handle it,” Ponza said.
The Greater Cleveland Food Pantry is taking donations, which are being used to buy exrta food for those in need. They ask those who need assistance to call their help center at 216-738-2067.
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