ROANOKE, Va. – Appalachian Power said the main reason for thousands of outages from the last storm was the amount of snowfall.
“It was very difficult storm for us,” Teresa Hall with AEP said.
The snow forced trees to fall, which in turn, brought down power lines.
“Especially those very tall pine trees just couldn’t take the weight and snapped and in the course of that brought down our wire with it,” said Hall.
The power company said it’s prepared to handle the next storm.
AEP said it has crews trimming tall trees to prevent them from falling on power lines.
“Our tree contractors and business partners are dedicated to keeping the power on,” Hall said.
While power companies are preparing, stores are getting ready as well.
“Well, when it snows, people are looking for several things,” said Randy Peregoy, the manager at Ace Hardware.
Peregoy said people normally buy gloves, ice melts, and salts before a snowstorm, as well as sice scrapers and shovels.
“We try to carry something that helps people out when they look in the garage and there’s snow out there,” said Peregoy. “We had a generator last week we sold, we had not replenished yet and we’re trying to get those back in,” Peregoy said.
Stores are prepared to make sure people take steps to prevent from getting cold.
“Get fire logs, put them in a fireplace put them well up and stay heated,” explained shopper Robert Washington, about his plan to stay warm.