The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

November 3, 2012

Restoration of power continues

By Sarah Plummer Register-Herald Reporter

BECKLEY — Road clearing and power restoration continued across the region Friday. And while many of the 271,000 customers without power at the height of the storm on Tuesday now have power restored, that’s little consolation to customers in areas of Nicholas and Wyoming counties who now expect to spend more than week in the dark.

As of 6 p.m. Friday, Mon Power reported more than 60 percent of its Nicholas County customers, a total of 5,859 are still without power.

The Craigsville area isn’t expected to have power until Saturday and the Richwood area will remain in the dark until Sunday.

The electric company doesn’t anticipate restoration to the rest of the county until Nov. 8, more than a week after the initial outages.

Appalachian Power still reported 2,500 customers in Raleigh County without power, 5,000 in Wyoming, 3,700 in Fayette County and an additional 900 in Nicholas.

Power was still expected to be 90 percent restored Friday in Raleigh and Fayette counties, but the restoration time for Pineville and all surrounding Wyoming areas had been moved to today at midnight.

Although the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s list of road closures was much shorter on Friday than it has been, 4-H Camp Road and roads in the area of Beauty Mountain were still closed in Fayette County. Those areas were expected to be cleared by the end of the day Friday.

In addition, Hookersville Road, Song Convention Road and roads in the area of Ramsey in Nicholas County are also closed due to snow and ice. No estimate was given for when these roads might open.

National Park Service employees are continuing assessments of damage to park locations from Superstorm Sandy.

Fayette Station Road remains closed with multiple trees down along the roadway. Access to Nuttallburg is closed due to numerous trees down along the state road and currently there is no access to Glade Creek campground. Gauley Tailwaters is also closed.

Army Camp and Grandview Sandbar Camp and launch area are open. The park staff has not conducted full assessments of the numerous trails at this time, though preliminary assessments indicate widespread tree damage on the trails. National Park Service personnel advise visitors to stay off the trails. If individuals choose to utilize the trail systems, they should use extreme caution.

— E-mail: splummer@register-herald.com

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