Jan. 10—BLUEFIELD — The number of West Virginia and Virginia residents waiting to get their electricity back kept dwindling Thursday as line crews worked to restore power before a new winter storm reached the region.
Thousands of line, tree and support workers were in the most challenging areas Thursday working to restore customers as quickly and safely as possible, said Debra L. Pannell, senior communications consultant for Appalachian Power.
The National Weather Service in Blacksburg, Va. issued a winter weather advisory Thursday which is set to start at 1 p.m. today and last until 7 a.m. Saturday. One to 3 inches of snow is possible. The power company was monitoring the forecasts, Pannell said.
As of 9 a.m. Thursday, about 8,800 Appalachian Power customers remained without electricity following the aftermath of Winter Storm Blair. This figure included 2,350 in Virginia and 6,450 in West Virginia. Over 100,500 customers were without electricity Monday when crews started their restoration efforts.
After 2 p.m. the overall number of customers without power was around 7,300.
Appalachian Power expected to have 90% or more of its customers’ service restored by 11 p.m. Thursday, Pannell said.
Thousands of line, tree and support workers were hard at work in challenging areas Thursday, Pannell said. The areas included Tazewell and Franklin counties in Virginia and Mercer, Summers, Fayette and Lincoln counties in West Virginia.
Mercer County, which was heavily impacted by Winter Storm Blair, still had around 3,325 customer outages Thursday afternoon. In Raleigh County, there were 28 outages. Tazewell County had 616 outages.
Appalachian Power asked customers to help ease the restoration of power to its distribution system. Extremely cold temperatures can cause line overload problems when trying to restore a large number of customers, but there are ways that customers can ease the challenge, Pannell said.
“We often must restore large outages in smaller groups, letting the electric load settle before restoring additional customers,” she said. “Customers with outages can assist by turning off large electric appliances, such as laundry equipment and ovens, until one hour after power has been restored.”
Crews are having to repeat repairs in some areas where precipitation re-freezes, thaws and causes more outages, Pannell said.
Roads in some areas stayed inaccessible and icy terrain was preventing crews from safely reaching job sites with the necessary equipment, she said. Hazardous road conditions in remote and rural areas continued to delay travel, and crews must clear ice or debris upon arrival, further slowing progress. Appalachian Power’s Storm Operations Team kept working with local officials to assist in restoration efforts.
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com