CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Approximately 1,200 linemen working for Appalachian Power Company will work the weekend to restore power to several thousand customers still without service following Wednesday’s heavy storms.
There were just under 92,000 customers without service right after the storms and that number was down to approximately 27,000 by late Friday morning. The line crews repair the line breaks that impact the most customers first, Appalachian Power spokesman Phil Moye said.
“Early on when we make that repair we might be able to get 500 customers back but as we get further into the restoration effort we’ll do that same amount of work but only get 50 people back,” Moye said.
The more isolated cases will be dealt with last.
Appalachian Power hoped to get all customers in McDowell, Mercer and Wyoming counties back on by Friday night. Customers in Cabell, Jackson, Lincoln, Mason, Putnam and Wayne counties by Saturday night and by Sunday night customers in Boone, Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, Kanawha, Logan, Mingo, Nicholas, Raleigh and Roane counties.
The breaks have similarities, Moye said.
“Most of our problems were related to trees. Two things we are seeing are a lot of wires down and broken poles,” Moye said.
The company is taking advantage of having additional crews from outside of West Virginia to help.
“We’re going to keep working at it until we get all of them restored but there’s still some hard work ahead. Fortunately, we have some good weather coming and a lot of help,” Moye said.
Some of the largest outage numbers as of 10:30 a.m. Friday included:
Fayette County (6,089), Kanawha County (2,727), Logan County (2,531), Mingo County (2,437), Boone County (2,055), Raleigh County (1,840), Wayne County (1,757) and McDowell County (1,550).