CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Line crews with Appalachian Power and Mon Power companies were preparing for a long day Sunday following heavy winds Saturday night and into Sunday morning that knocked off electrical service to approximately 16,000 customers in West Virginia.
At 6:30 a.m. Sunday, Appalachian Power reported nearly 11,000 of its customers in southern West Virginia impacted by outages. Repair crews were being dispatched for work in 18 separate counties. Fayette County led the way with nearly 1,900 customers without service. More than 1,500 Kanawha County customers were in the dark Sunday morning while Wayne and Wyoming counties each had outages topping 1,300 customers.
Mon Power crews had outages in nearly three dozen counties early Sunday including Ritchie and Pendleton counties that had more than 700 customers without service and Wood County with almost 400.
Firefighters throughout the state were called out to deal with downed trees caused by wind gusts that in some areas topped 50 mph. The gusts had died down in most areas to the 30 mph range by midnight.
Some areas of the northern panhandle and other northern counties were hit by a quick snow squall around midnight that put down more than an inch of snow and reduced visibility to motorists for a period of time.
West Virginia can expect below average temperatures for the next 7 days, according to the National Weather Service.