CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Appalachian Power is hopeful it can restore services affected by storms earlier this week by the weekend.
According to the utility, there are around 16,400 customer outages in its service area in West Virginia as of 8 p.m. Wednesday. Most of the outages are in Ohio and Kanawha counties.
“It seems like the winds were really high consistently across that area,” Appalachian Power spokesperson Phil Moye said of Monday’s storms. “Just a lot of large trees down, so it’s just kind of tough sledding there.”
Appalachian Power has retained crews from as far as Alabama to assist with the clean-up and restoration efforts. The company plans to have services for customers in the Huntington and Wayne County areas restored by 10 p.m. Wednesday. Customers around Charleston, Beckley and southern West Virginia should have services back by 10 p.m. Thursday. The remaining customers around Wheeling, Milton and Ripley should have electricity by 10 p.m. on Friday.
Crews are working on restoring power as high temperatures across West Virginia are in the 90s. Moye said workers are taking steps to avoid heat stroke and heat exhaustion.
“It’s a horrible situation for folks that are out of power because they are suffering through that 90-plus heat without electricity or air condition, but it’s also a very tough restoration effort for some of those folks out there wearing the heavy rubber gloves and sleeves and sweating like crazy while they’re out trying to get the power restored,” he said.