CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The damage from Monday’s EF-1 Tornado was substantial for Appalachian Power Company, but unlike some storms the work to make repairs has gone quickly.
Company spokesman Phil Moye said although the damage was massive, it was not spread over a very wide area. Most of the outages and broken poles and lines are in Kanawha County. The company was also able to draw from within and bring in company linemen from many places to help out.
“We were able to get a ton of resources in there from throughout West Virginia and Virginia,” Moye said. “Even though we’ve got some severe damage, it’s confined to pretty much one county so we’ve been able to get those numbers down.”
The numbers at the height of the storm’s aftermath were around 25,000 customers without power. Wednesday at noon the number was down to 6,500 and Moye anticipated they would have most service restored soon.
“We’ll have most of the customers on by late Wednesday night, but areas where we’ll still be working in Thursday are the areas where we saw a lot of trees down, poles broken, and that sort of thing.” Moye explained.
Some of the heaviest damage was on Charleston’s east end around the State Capitol Complex.. Several poles were broken and transformers twisted and left in the road hanging from power lines.
“The lines which serve the Capitol are badly damaged, “Moye said. “In order to safety repair it you have to take out power to the Capitol. The Capitol may have another line coming in, but we have to de-energize in order to safely rebuild all of the stuff that’s torn down around it.”
Due to the problems with repairs in and around the state Capitol Complex, some offices at the Capitol were closed for a second day. Anyone with business at the Capitol is encouraged to call ahead to make sure the office you will need is open.