BECKLEY, W.Va. — It will be Wednesday, at the earliest, before power is restored to southeastern West Virginia customers of Appalachian Power Company who were impacted by the weekend snow storm.
As of 10:30 a.m. Monday, about 7,500 customers were still without power.
The largest customer outages were reported in McDowell, Mercer, Mingo and Wyoming.
Phil Moye, company spokesman, said outages in McDowell and Wyoming counties should be restored by Tuesday evening. Mercer and other surrounding counties should be back on by Wednesday evening.
As much as 15 inches of snow fell Saturday night in some areas — causing trees and limbs to collapse on to power lines.
“The biggest challenge we had, initially, was just getting into places,” Moye said. “Access was very difficult. Lots of trees down, lots of wet snow. That is melting off so we’re seeing a little less of that.”
The snow was heavy and wet, which complicated restoration efforts, Moye said.
“It was wet enough to break trees and break limbs and that’s really what gave us problems,” he said.
It was the most significant snowstorm to hit the area since Superstorm Sandy in West Virginia in 2012.
More than 1,000 employees are working to restore service.