The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

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  • Snow covers the trees on Northwestern Aveneue in Beckley Monday morning. The Beckley area received 8 to 9 inches of snow from the storm Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. Rick Barbero

    Snow
February 21, 2012

Power cut to 66,000 at peak of snowstorm

By Kara Van Pelt Register-Herald Reporter

BECKLEY — The region was blanketed by heavy, wet snow Sunday, causing many Appalachian Power customers to lose power.

According to Appalachian Power Co., outages peaked  Sunday at 66,000 customers in the two Virginias.

Some additional power outages took place Monday morning as a result of melting snow.

However, at noon Monday, 29,000 West Virginia customers were still without electricity, while 34,000 were in the dark in Virginia, Dave Langford, manager of external affairs, said.

In anticipation of power outages, hundreds of contractors were staged, along with APCO employees, Langford added.

“Beyond that we have approximately 100 additional contract line workers traveling to the hardest hit areas and will join local crews there,” he said.

In addition, APCO has 80 damage assessors assisting our workers, he added.

“Until assessors can provide a clearer picture of the amount of damage caused by the storm, we are unable to provide specific restoration estimates,” he said.

As of 1 p.m., Raleigh County had 6,136 affected customers; Summers had 516 outages; Wyoming, 653 outages; Monroe, 1,853 customers were without power; and Mercer County was hit hardest with 15,844 customers without power.

Officials warn customers to treat every downed line as a live wire — step away from the downed pole and never touch it.

At 7 p.m., the number of those without power decreased regionally: Raleigh County had 2,541; Fayette County had 232 without power; Greenbrier County had 124 cutomers without power; Summers County has 151 without power; Monroe County had 733 customers without power; and Wyoming County reported 287 customers without power.

This showed crews were working around the clock to retore power and will continue to do so.

Langford said he expects repairs to take some time, estimating some customers may be out until Thursday evening.

As progress is made, more updates will be available.

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

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