SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA – Intense thunderstorms that rolled through Appalachian Power’s three-state service area late Friday afternoon left a little more than 130,000 customers without power.
As the storm passed, teams of workers began to assess the damage and make repairs. Service is back on this morning for 62,000 customers and workers are focused on restoring service to the 68,000 customers who remain without power.
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This is the second significant weather event to impact the company’s service territory in less than a week.
Damage is widespread with outages in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. There are roughly 2,400 locations where repairs are needed to restore electric service. Much of the damage appears to be caused by trees.
There are approximately 2,000 company and contract workers dedicated to getting the power back on for customers. Most of these workers had completed restoration from the first storm and were staged in various locations yesterday in anticipation of this latest weather event. Crews from Appalachian Power’s sister company, Indiana Michigan, are expected to arrive later today to aid with restoration. Additional line resources and assessors have also been requested.
The company hopes to have estimated restoration times by late this evening.
For information on outages, visit Appalachian Power’s Outage Map.
Storms that produce heavy wind and rain cause damage that downs power lines. Customers should treat all downed lines as live power lines and stay away from them.
Keep children and pets away from fallen lines and anything the lines may touch. Never remove debris that’s within 10 feet of a power line.
Additional safety tips are posted at https://www.appalachianpower.com/safety/