FAYETTEVILLE — The number of WV National Guard troops on the ground in Fayette County has gone from 2 to over 200 since Friday’s storm knocked out power for most of the county.

“I think without the National Guard we would be very hard pressed to deal with this on our own,” says Fayette County Commission President Matthew Wender.

The Guard is preparing hot meals, delivering water, and going door to door to check on people in outlying areas.

“The National Guard is continuing to push out into the backwoods communities,” says Major Tom Mills, who is the officer in command at Fayetteville’s Office of Emergency Services.

“If there are downed power lines we might not get there, but we want to be seen in these communities.”

The National Guard is also calling for volunteers to come to the Memorial Building in Fayetteville to help with unloading pallets of supplies.

“The unloading of trucks takes away from our health and wellness mission,” says Mills. “Any help we can get frees up those teams.”

“The Guard we have is the West Virginia National Guard. West Virginia has 53 counties affected. These guys left their own homes and came to help us,” says Fayette County Emergency Services Director Theresa White.

As of 5 p.m. on Friday, half of Fayette County was still without power. The percentage of customers in need dropped 15 percentage points since 24 hours previous.

But given that the county at one point had 92 percent of residents without power, the crisis is beginning to subside.

As it does, the county is shifting some attention to tracking the monetary and people power resources they are using and have used all week for relief efforts.

“Other than getting services out to people, this is the second most important thing because otherwise we’re on the hook to pay for it,” says White.

“We have to have some system for tracking what we’re doing if we’re going to get reimbursed for anything,” says Fayette County Sheriff Steve Kessler.

The state is asking for preliminary numbers by Tuesday, according to White.

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In large part, restoration of power in Fayette County has been based on temporary patches until a permanent fix is in place.

The power grid is therefore still not stable and power may be off and on for at least a week.

Authorities are cautioning people against restocking their refrigerators until the grid is stable.

All of the county’s PSDs without power are reportedly still running on generators and producing water, but some are having booster station issues.

At Armstrong Creek PSD, the lack of booster station means those in the upper end of Powellton Hollow are still without water.

Three sewer plants are also being operated by generator.

The state is still on a boil water advisory, but only for people who lost power, experienced low pressure, or cloudy water.

The Fayette County Sheriff’s Department is still running bottled water to distribution points in the county, and instructing volunteers to not only keep some for pick-up, but also send some out to outlying areas.

The Lewis Center in Oak Hill has now shut down its shelter. Twenty-five people were transfered to the Fayetteville Church of God, also serving as a shelter.

Hot meals are still being pushed out by the National Guard. Feeding stations are set up at Gauley Bridge, Armstrong Creek, Ansted, and the Glen Jean Armory. The armory is sending out meals to Page Baptist Church.

Each feeding location is also reportedly getting a “logistical package” of water, MRE’s and ice.

The Guard is also trying to coordinate MRE drop-offs at their water distribution points, though MRE's were running low as of Friday morning.

“We’re in the process of requesting more resources, but so is everyone else in the state,” says Mills.

The Red Cross’s food preparation facility at Restoration Fellowship Church in Mt. Nebo is also serving up meals at full capacity to Mt. Lookout Fire Department, Sunday Road Baptist Church, Meadow Bridge Good News Outreach and Danese Fire Department.

Dumpsters for spoiled food are still in place at 12 locations in the county.

—E-mail: cmoore@register-herald.com