High flood waters complicating power situation; 60,000 without power as of 2:15 pm

LEWISBURG, W.Va. — The level of flooding and the speed with which it recedes will play a large role in determining how quickly residents in hard hit areas in Greenbrier, Nicholas, Webster, and several other southern West Virginia counties have their lights back on.

Mon Power Spokesperson Todd Meyers, on his way to survey the scene in Lewisburg, said in a phone interview Friday afternoon that areas like Ronceverte, White Sulpher Springs, Richwood, and others are still waiting for flood waters to recede.

“Honestly, I have to tell you that at this juncture at 1:30 today, I don’t know,” Meyers said in reference to when the power would return throughout the state.

“[Flooding] obviously is hampering our efforts to get out and about. There’s a lot of spots where there is high water. Roads are covered or gone. Bridges are closed. It’s a little bit difficult to get around.”

Further complicating the power restoration efforts is additional rain that hit this morning. Some substations in Greenbrier County were turned off to improve the safety conditions for rescue workers. Meyers said those substations can’t be turned back on until a damage assessment has been completed.

“Many of the customers–almost all the customers that we have out and that’s around 17,000 plus–those customers are out because of a forced outage for safety,” he said.

Ronceverte in Greenbrier County is one of several places that will need additional damage assessments before the substations can be re-energized.

“We are suspicious that one of the transformers there–that’s a vital piece of the station–may be damaged,” he said. “That’s not to say we can’t work around that. There are ways to reconfigure the system, and we are doing that in a lot of places.”

“Our hope is that we’re going to start trying to turn those facilities back on and get those re-energized maybe the latter part of the early evening. Later this evening we’ll have some of that back on. They are creating a game plan right now to do that.”

Customers in areas that have been less impacted by flooding will likely see their power return some time Saturday. Estimates range between 3 pm and 11 pm.

“Our hope is that the system is largely in tact and that when they do re-energize those facilities are customers will be back,” Meyers said.

As of 2:15 pm, approximately 60,000 customers of Mon Power and Appalachian Power were suffering outages.





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