HURRICANE, W.Va. — Appalachian Power estimates it will be 8 to 10 p.m. tonight before more than 2,700 customers have service restored in Putnam and Cabell Counties.
Officials say lightning struck a substation along U.S. Route 60 near Hurricane late Friday night. The strike destroyed a massive transformer inside the substation. The outage left more than 3,000 in the dark by 2 a.m. Saturday.
“It’s a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment,” said company spokesman Phil Moye. “The closest replacement we have is in Roanoke, Virginia. We’re in the process of transporting it there now, but it’s a time consuming process.”
The company was able to whittle down the outages by diverting some customers to power sources elsewhere.
The company has more than 5,000 total customers in southern West Virginia in the dark at one point. Moye said outside of the Hurricane service area, the rest are isolated outages blamed on wind or other storm damage from Friday night. Those repairs are also underway.