POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — The aftermath of Winter Storm Thor remained to affect the Mountain State Friday with thousands of power outages statewide and some moderate flooding areas on rivers, streams, and creeks.
An area that saw much of those high waters was where the Kanawha and Ohio rivers meet in Point Pleasant.
“I think we were kind of in the eye of this storm that hit this area,” said Brian Billings, Mayor of Point Pleasant.
Billings said some of the creeks in the outlying areas of the city showed some forms of flooding, but as of Friday, there have not been any major reports. He said the flooding did not affect any homes or businesses in the area.
“The residents have been very cooperative here,” said Billings, “Our state highway department has done an excellent job on the state highway that moves through our city. Our staff will move very quickly to make sure that these people will not be harmed.”
Thor also left a massive headache for Appalachian Power Company crews Thursday and Friday in many counties throughout the state. Crews worked on broken lines but made little progress on the overall outage numbers.
Saturday evening is when Appalachian Power crews expect their customers to have full power restored.
Cabell County reported 9,500 customers without service Friday morning, which was just shy of the 10,000 customers reported Thursday morning.
Cabell County Office of Emergency Services Spokesperson Elizabeth Ayers said repairing lines has been a slow process because the power crews had to wait out the winter storm.
“They didn’t actually start trying to restore some of the power until today (Friday). They actually went out yesterday (Thursday) and told us to evaluate the situation and what would need to be done,” said Ayers.
Ayers said they have a few warming stations and shelters for the people of Cabell County to utilize. She said attendance has been low at those locations.
As of Friday morning, some counties that still had thousands of Appalachian customers without service included Putnam County with 5,100, Kanawha County with 4,700, Jackson County with 2,900, Mason County had 3,600, and Wayne County with 1,800 people.