FAIRMONT, W.Va. — Although the eastern panhandle saw the highest accumulation from the storm system Tuesday night and Wednesday, the most destructive snow fell in the southeastern counties of West Virginia.
“Most of the action is in the very southern part of our service area,” said Todd Meyers a spokesman for First Energy, parent company of Mon Power and Potomac Edison. “Greenbrier County has about six thousand customers out and a lot of them are in the White Sulphur Springs area.”
Mon Power and Appalachian Power both reported outages into the thousands as the snow totals piled up on Wednesday in the area from the Virginia border to I-64 and then north. But in the eastern panhandle, where more than a foot of snow piled up, the outages were minimal.
“Some of those areas of southern West Virginia are seeing that heavier, wet snow that can get on trees, weigh them down, and create some problems,” said Meyers. “After that windstorm we had a few weeks ago there may be some stuff hanging around just waiting for an excuse to fall.”
Meyers said the company was prepared and had plenty of advanced warning. They were able to move crews from the western part of West Virginia into those troubled areas on Wednesday to more quickly respond to the problems.
“What we’re seeing are lines coming out of some big substations and there’s something down on those lines. We’re out there patrolling those to get people restored as quickly as possible,” he explained.
Meyers said he anticipated by Wednesday evening most of the snow will have moved out and they expected to have most outages restored by Thursday morning.