Appalachian Power reports all customers in Virginia have power now

More than 70,000 people are still without power in Virginia, Governor McDonnell said Friday.

The power outages are a result of strong "derecho" storms that rolled through the area June 29 with little warning.

As of 1:30 p.m. Friday, 61,377 Appalachian Power customers were without power. Additionally, more than 5,000 Dominion Virginia Power customers don't have their power back yet.

“It has been a trying time, and I am grateful for the progress that has been made and the patience our citizens have shown. We will continue our around-the-clock efforts until power has been restored to every household," Governor McDonnell wrote in a news release. "In the meantime, I ask that every citizen be extremely careful in these high temperatures and seek cool places away from the intense heat.”

Here are the most recent restoration timelines from Appalachian Power:
 
Friday night, July 6 - Buchanan, Carroll, Dickenson, Giles, Grayson, Montgomery, Pulaski, Smyth, Tazewell, Washington and Wythe counties. Outages in Buchanan and Dickenson counties are due to July 5 storms.

Saturday night, July 7 - Albermarle, Amherst, Bedford, Botetourt, Campbell, City of Lynchburg, Franklin, Nelson, Patrick, and Roanoke counties and City of Roanoke

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 As of 8:25 a.m. Friday morning, 65,420 Appalachian Power customers were without power.

That includes nearly 10,000 customers in Lynchburg.

Appalachian Power says there are still about 128,000 customers without power in West Virginia. That includes Kanawha County, where more than 40,000 customers are still in the dark.

Dominion Virginia Power reports more than 6,000 outages on its website.

Elsewhere, Central Virginia Electric Cooperative had 23 outages left in its service area. Eleven of those are in the Whitehall area.

BARC is reporting about 800 customers still without power. The utility asks customers who are still without power to call (800) 846-2272.

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Governor McDonnell says less there are less than 100,000 Virginia power customers without power.

McDonnell says that across the state, 95,475 customers were still in the dark.

The strong derecho storms ripped through Virginia on Friday night, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers across the Commonwealth.

Also Thursday, Governor McDonnell announced a 13th storm-related death. The most recent fatality happened in Fairfax County.

Meanwhile, Appalachian Power says it is making progress and has restored over 68 percent of its power outages in Virginia, following Friday's storm.

As of 4:15 p.m. Thursday, there were 76,733 Appalachian Power customers without power, which is down slightly from the nearly 79,000 customers at noon Thursday. At its peak, 243,000 Appalachian Power customers in Virginia were without power.
   
Appalachian Power's president explains that there may be more work to do after power is fully restored.

"Many of the fixes we have in place now are temporary, and we'll have to go in and normalize the system and get it back to regularly working," said Charles Patton, Appalachian Power president.

Appalachian Power has recruited up to 4,000 workers to help. Also Thursday, Appalachian Power fired On Power, one of the companies it had hired to help with  restoration efforts.

Dominion Virginia Power says power should be restored to its customers in Rockbridge County, Covington, Clifton Forge, the Charlottesville area and most of the Shenandoah Valley by Saturday night. The utility says it has restored power to more than 1 million customers during the past six days, or 98 percent of those who lost service.

Here is Appalachian Power's restoration timeline:

Thursday night, July 5: Floyd, Smyth and Tazewell counties.

Friday night, July 6: Carroll, Giles, Grayson, Montgomery, Pulaski and Wythe counties.

Saturday night, July 7: Albermarle, Amherst, Bedford, Botetourt, Campbell, City of Lynchburg, Franklin, Henry, Nelson, Patrick, Pittsylvania and Roanoke counties and Roanoke City.

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According to Governor McDonnell, about 107,300 customers in Virginia are still without power following Friday's devastating storms.

McDonnell said additional crews are being brought in to the commonwealth.

“Virginia continues to recover from last week’s historic storms,” Governor McDonnell wrote in a news release. “This recovery effort depends upon all Virginians working together.”
 
Twelve people were killed from storm-related injuries in Friday's storms.

As of 11 a.m. Thursday, 77,188 Appalachian Power customers were still without power for the sixth straight day.

Despite the July 4th holiday Wednesday, workers were able to make a lot of progress. Power was restored to about 47,000 customers.

Dominion Virginia Power says almost all of its customers have their power back.

That company was able to restore power to roughly 50,000 homes and businesses Wednesday.

In all, about 95 percent of Dominion's customers are back on the grid. As of 11 a.m. Thursday, 27,524 customers were still without power.

The problem areas are in Rockbridge, Alleghany, and Botetourt Counties, where things should hopefully be fixed by Friday.

Appalachian Power's outages include more than 18,000 customers without power in Lynchburg. In the City of Roanoke, 10,641 customers are still without power.

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