PRINCETON, W. Va. -Mercer County is still suffering from the effects of the storm, and while the flood waters have receded in much of the area, many are still without power.
The Mercer County Emergency Management Director Keith Gunnoe says their first priority following the storm was to clear the roadways of debris to allow first responders to operate, and, now that flooding is no longer the concern that it was in previous days, their main focus is restoring the power.
While some places have power already, there’s no way to tell when it will be fully restored to Mercer County. Gunnoe calls the damage to the power grid “significant,” and asks for the community’s patience and prayer as AEP works on the power lines.
Despite this lack of power, he says people should still treat any power line they see as energized. Even if it likely isn’t, you can’t know for sure until AEP verifies.
“…If the fire department showed up sometime during this event and didn’t cut that tree out of the way… and the powerlines were involved, that’s because we wasn’t sure, and we have to err on the side of caution, and I don’t advise anybody to… go out cutting a tree out of a bunch of powerlines… until AEP gets someone there to verify that line is dead,” says Gunnoe.
Gunnoe says, even after the power is back on, it could be weeks or months before normalcy is restored, with many homes left damaged by falling trees. He encourages people to upload their damages to the state through this survey.
He says this a crucial step to find the amount of money lost in the county and find whether this meets the threshold for being declared a federal disaster. If it does, he says that opens the possibility of financial help to those affected by the storm.
Following the food distributions on Monday (Matoaka and Montcalm Volunteer Fire Depts. at 12:00pm and Bramwell Volunteer Fire Dept. at 5:00 pm), he says they are planning to continue food distributions throughout the coming week and are planning to move the locations to best meet the needs of the area.
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