CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Line crews who were near completion of a week-long effort to restore power across parts of West Virginia had additional days tacked onto the task Friday in a matter of minutes.
“We peaked Tuesday morning at about 70,000 outages in West Virginia. We just had that work down pretty well, but by Friday evening we were back up in that high range again and it’s just really difficulty to deal with,” said Appalachian Power spokesman Phil Moye.
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Thunderstorms popped up Friday afternoon and crossed southern West Virginia. They left a wide path of destruction. The worst impact was in the southern West Virginia coalfields and the Greenbrier Valley.
Appalachian Power on Saturday morning reported just over 40,000 outages in the West Virginia service territory. The storm came just as the company was winding down major repairs to the system in Ohio County and the northern panhandle.
The outage numbers county by county in the coalfields were daunting. Kanawha County 6,359, Mingo County 6,545, Wayne County 4,785, Fayette County 3,014, Cabell County 3,105, Logan County 4,150, McDowell County 2,225, Wyoming County 2,656, Raleigh County 1.407, Lincoln County 1,732.
“It’ looks like some of the worst damage from this storm is in those coalfield counties,” Moye said.
The location of the highest outage totals revealed the path of Friday’s storm. Mon Power reported 4,430 outages in their West Virginia service area Saturday morning. The total included 1,143 in Greenbrier County and 1,220 in Pocahontas County.
Repair work could take several days to complete with numerous tangles of power lines and tree limbs to pull apart in every community. However, Moye said one advantage is they already had help on the ground to get the work done faster.
“All those crews that were in here helping with that first storm, we were able to hang on to those crews and have them here to help out with this storm as well,” he said.
The line of storms moved through mid-afternoon and contained wind gusts in the 50 mph range along with many lightning strikes. Meteorologists said there’s cooler more comfortable conditions behind the storms. Saturday and Sunday are foretasted to be sunny days with high temperatures in the 70’s. Lows Saturday night could dip into the 40’s in some areas.