Power restored here, but many in state still out
After the severe wind and thunderstorms of Friday, June 29 that left over 2 million people in the Mid-Atlantic region without power, lights and air conditioners are finally working in all but five Morgan County homes and businesses.
There were 4,000 customers in the county without power on Monday, July 2.
By Friday, only 131 remained. That number dwindled to 17 on Saturday and by Monday morning, July 9 – 10 days after the storm – five homes were waiting to be restored, according to the First Energy website.
Potomac Edison spokesman Alan Staggers said the remaining five homes without power in Morgan County were out due to a storm Sunday afternoon and not from the June 29 storm.
State hit hard
Although it took over a week, and probably seemed longer to those affected before power was restored to some in Morgan County, other counties in the state fared much, much worse.
On Monday morning, 22 of West Virginia’s 55 counties still had major power problems.
Greenbrier County had 3,929 customers without power and Summers and Nicholas counties each had over 2,000.
Six counties had more than a thousand customers without power while five other counties had 500 or more homes waiting on power to be restored.
Staggers said in all, 28,000 customers were still out but some of those were due to more recent storms.
“We are getting more and more customers up every day,” Staggers said, but he declined to estimate how long it would take to restore power to everyone.
Most outages are in the middle or southern parts of the state in Mon Power’s service area.
Staggers said only 130 Potomac Edison customers were without power as of Monday morning.
Governor issues burning ban
On Friday, July 6, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin visited five of the worst hit counties and First Lady Joanne Jaeger Tomblin toured four more counties.
Due to scarce water supplies, Governor Tomblin authorized a burning ban throughout the state.
“With our emergency personnel working hard to provide recovery assistance, along with the unusually dry conditions, we must take extra precautions to help prevent accidental fires,” Tomblin said.
The governor’s proclamation authorizes the state’s Division of Forestry and Division of Natural Resources to issue directives regarding the scope of the burning ban.
“State resources are stretched to the limit as emergency personnel work to assist residents with repair and cleanup from the storm,” State Forester Randy Dye said.
Some relief is being provided by a cool front that moved through the state Sunday evening dropping temperatures this week back into the 80s.
