CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — While avoiding most of the traffic issues seen in the southern parts of the state, North Central West Virginia did see an impact from the winter storm Friday night into Saturday morning.
The average snowfall for the area ranged from 16 inches in the valleys to well over two feet in the higher elevations.
Those levels led to a number of power outages for a portion of First Energy Customers, with concentrations in Lewis, Gilmer and Barbour Counties.
By mid morning, Lewis County had reported over 500 outages but by the afternoon, that numbers was reported to be around 42.
“We were out at the Market Place Mall [in Weston] out there at McDonald’s yesterday and there were 18 power trucks staged out there,” said Bill Rowan, Lewis County E-911 and OEM Director on a special edition of the AJR News Network’s “Mike Queen Show.” “Our power company was ready.”
Where the power outages persist, counties are still ready to open up warming stations if needed and if conditions allow it.
“We have identified some warming stations that we may look at opening up later on once the travel conditions get better,” said Eric Squires with Gilmer County EMS. “Right now, we ask people to shelter-in-place.”
The road conditions continue to be poor with a majority of secondary roads,and several main highways considered to be impassible with all others covered in snow.
“Roads are still miserable,” said Paul Bump, Harrison/Taylor 911 Director. “The crews are out there trying to do what they can, but that’s a lot of snow to move from point a to point b. All through this thing, we’ve been asking people to on Saturday planning on staying home, let the crews do what they need to do. That’s what we need people to do, hunker down and stay home.”
No major accidents have been reported throughout the area, as many people listened to the warnings and stayed off the roads.
“Nobody was hurt, nothing like that happened,” “They were very, very light overnight. It was impressive how everybody was out there not getting into trouble.”
Snowfall is expected to continue through Saturday night into Sunday morning.