BLUEFIELD, W.Va. – Appalachian Power says nearly 6,000 personnel are on the ground in the Two Virginias working to restore power to thousands still left without it.
More snow and bitter cold temperatures on Monday night slowed restoration efforts as crews dealt with more downed lines and treacherous road conditions.
“They reported to us this morning that most of the secondary roads were not cleared at all. So just getting access first of all to the locations and once you get to the location in a lot of instances they are on foot. It just takes a little bit longer but we will get there,” said Debby Pannell, spokesperson for Appalachian Power.
Pannell says so far crews have have found 475 spans of downed wire, 80 broken poles, 65 damaged cross arms and 30 transformers in need of maintenance.
Pannell says crews are continuing their efforts and are not anticipating any further weather delays for crews. She says the majority of people should expect their power to be back on by Wednesday night. However, she adds the possibility of restoration push backs is still not ruled out.
“It just depends on the damage that we find when we’re out there. Certainly it could happen that we go to make a repair and we see additional damage that requires additional crews or equipment. That is a possibility but we’re fairly certain on our estimate,” said Pannell.
Pannell says bitter cold temperatures can cause overload problems when trying to restore power to a large number of people, meaning they have to restore in smaller groups which also slows the process.
She says people at home without power can help in the restoration process by turning off large electric users, such as laundry equipment and ovens, until one hour after power has been restored. This helps to ensure the power grid doesn’t get overloaded once it’s back up and running.
To view AEP’s outage map and sign up for outage alerts you can go here.
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