Eight Northeast Ohio Counties, including Summit, are now eligible for expedited assitance from the State of Ohio.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has decalred a State of Emergency, in an effort to provide help for communities affected by tornadoes and severe storms on Tuesday.

The counties covered in the declaration are Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Portage, Summit and Trumbull.

The storms knocked out power to more than a half million people, and though that number has been greatly reduced; thousands are still without power this weekend. In fact, According to First Energy's Outage map; in five of those counites–Cuyahoga, Geagua, Lake, Lorain, and Portage–power won't be fully restored until late Wednesday night, August 14.

The bulk of the outages are in Cuyahoga County, where there are still 53,236 customers without power. Lake County now has 9,182, Geaugua, 8,092, Lorain, 1,102, Portage, 273, Trumbull, 179, and Summit, 14. 

In a release, the Governor says that so far the request for state assistance has been for help with mobile oxygen generators which have been sent by the Ohio Department of Health to Cuyahoga County. Other state agencies, including the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, have been closely monitoring developments through their roles overseeing SNAP benefits and electric utilities.

In addition to the state declaration of emergency, DeWine is directing Ohio Emergency Management Director Sima Merick to ask the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to come to Northeast Ohio and conduct a damage assessment.