POCAHONTAS COUNTY, W.Va. – It couldn’t happen at a worse time. But Friday morning 6,100 Mon Power customers were without service on one of the coldest days of the year.
Todd Meyers with Mon Power said they were dealing with two separate outages in different parts of the state. The first outage was in Pocahontas County. The power went about midnight to Snowshoe Resort and surrounding communities.
Crews were able to reroute Snowshoe’s system into another electric source and return service within two hours. However, 3,200 customers in Marlinton remained without electricity Friday mid-morning.
Meyers stressed it was difficult finding the source of that outage because of the conditions.
“Because there’s so much snow we had to bring in one of our snowcats from Elkins,” explained Meyers.
They were able to locate a static line on top of a pole that is used to protect the system from lightning strikes.
“That wire came down and dropped into the energized line and that’s what’s caused the trouble.”
Meyer said a crew of six went out in the snowcat and they should have the repairs complete by early afternoon.
Meanwhile, in Monroe County 2,200 customers in Gap Mills and Union were without power as well.
“There’s a fuse in a substation on the transformer that’s blown. So we need to change that fuse out,” according to Meyers.
Crews are also checking to make sure no lines are on the ground that could also be impacting customers in Monroe County.
“It was negative 9-degrees and the wind was howling at Snowshoe. I don’t know how cold it is in Monroe County,” said Meyers. “The cold like this is hard on the system.”
Meyers stressed the goal is to get their customers back on line as soon as possible.
“It’s hard on our customers and we realize that and we know we need to get out there very quickly and make these repairs,” stressed Meyers