CHARLESTON, W.Va., September 15, 2008 – Line workers and tree-trimming crews from across Appalachian Power’s service area are headed to Ohio to assist with service restoration after tropical storm-force winds ripped across the state Sunday, leaving more than a half-million AEP customers without electric service. Nearly 600 workers – a mix of company employees and line and tree-trimming contractors – will join the effort beginning today.
 
“We expected to send workers south to help with service restoration from damage caused by Hurricane Ike,” said Phil Wright, Appalachian’s vice president – distribution operations. “As it turns out, the storm’s greatest impact on electrical facilities came in Ohio, and that’s where we’re sending crews to assist.”
 
Wright said weather forecasts indicate a low probability for severe weather across the company’s Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia service areas this week, and emphasized that enough workers will remain to maintain the company’s distribution system. Some customer service requests and planned tree-trimming work may be delayed while crews are away.
 
Early estimates indicate some customers could be without electricity for seven days as a result of the storm. “An outage of this magnitude is almost unheard of in the midwest, especially at this time of year, and it is our duty to help our neighbors during their time of need,” said Wright.
 
Appalachian Power has almost 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. 


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