Charleston, W.Va., January 18, 2013 – Power outages peaked this morning as a result of yesterday’s fast-moving snow storm through Appalachian Power’s service area. More than 130,000 customers are without power; 121,000 of those are in Virginia where the damage is most severe. Approximately 7,700 customers in Tennessee and 1,400 customers in West Virginia are also without electricity as a result of the storm.

Damage assessment is today’s top priority, but poor road conditions will likely hamper efforts. “Until assessors can provide a clearer picture of the amount of damage caused by the storm, we are unable to provide specific restoration estimates with any degree of accuracy in most areas,” said Phil Wright, vice president – distribution operations. “It is clear, however, this is a multi-day restoration effort.”

Service restoration is handled by priority, meaning essential public safety facilities are repaired first, followed by trouble areas affecting the most customers. From there, small clusters of customers are repaired and then individual homes and businesses.

More than 1,400 line workers and 250 damage assessors from outside the Appalachian service area have been secured. They are assisting the approximate 1,600 locally-based Appalachian Power employees and contractors who are available to work on the storm. 

Appalachian Power has 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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