MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — FirstEnergy is using a mix of in-house and private contractors to get to complete power restoration following Saturday’s storms. The restoration time for all customers without power is Wednesday night at 11 o’clock.
FirstEnergy Spokesman Will Boye said at one point there were 48,000 customers without power, and as of Tuesday morning, that number has been reduced to slightly more than 6,800 customers without electricity in their service area.
“The majority of those are in the Morgantown area, where we have roughly 5,500 customers without power, and we have a lot of work left to do,” Boye said.
The next counties on the list with major repairs are Morgan, with more than 400 still without power, and Preston, where nearly 400 remain in the dark.
Boye said the damage in the Morgantown area was extensive and widespread. During the first two days of the restoration effort, Boye said they have worked as quickly and as safely as possible.
“We’ve replaced 85 broken poles so far in our Mon Power service territory, and 50 of those have been in the Morgantown area during the first two days of the restoration effort,” Boye said.
Boye said the crews are setting more new poles today, some in remote areas that require special equipment in their ongoing effort.
“We’ve got 15 more poles that have to be replaced today in Morgantown,” Boye said. “Many of those are off-road poles, so we’ve been using tracked diggers to get to those to make those repairs and replacements.”
Boye said the number of broken poles and cross arms has been staggering. Wind gusts of 60 to 70 miles per hour were reported during the Saturday storm event.
“The damage was certainly significant, and we’ve had folks in our operations group say they haven’t seen this many broken poles in a long time,” Boye said.
No storm-related injuries have been reported.
FirstEnergy is the parent company of Mon Power and Potomac Edison.