Power Outages Continue Across Appalachia After Winter Storms
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Thousands of residents across West Virginia and eastern Kentucky remained without power on Saturday due to severe winter weather.
In West Virginia, Appalachian Power said that approximately 44,000 customers were without electricity after experiencing back-to-back ice storms hit the state Feb. 11 and Feb. 15. More than 3,200 workers were spread across the six hardest hit counties on Saturday attempting to get power back online.
The company has identified roughly 1,500 separate locations that need repairs.
The company warned that while repairs are being made, the work remains difficult. In Wayne County, workers had to replace the same pole three times because trees kept falling on it.
Over in eastern Kentucky, approximately 41,100 residents were without power, according to poweroutage.com, a website that tracks outages.
Utility officials said some of their customers are still recovering from the recent paralyzing winter weather, particularly in Boyd, Carter and Lawrence counties. More than 2,000 Kentucky Power employees, foresters and assessors are working to get power restored.
Meanwhile, in middle Tennessee, power outages remained for approximately 3,300 residents.
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