Ice storm outage
Ice storm leaves 2,500 people without power, cell phone service
By KILTIE TOMPKINS and NINA COOLIDGE
More than 2,500 people in Rockbridge County were still without power Thursday afternoon after an ice storm hit the area Tuesday. The storm also knocked out cell phone service for many students and area residents.
Power company representatives said 803 BARC Electric Cooperative customers and 1,700 Dominion Virginia Power customers were still waiting to have power restored Thursday afternoon. Those numbers are down from about 2,250 Dominion customers and more than 2,000 BARC customers who lost power during the storm.
Both companies said the outages were scattered across the county and were not concentrated in any area. Dominion said that of the 110 original locations with trouble, 76 have been worked on by repair crews. They hope to get the remainder of their customers back with power by Friday night.
BARC said the company has as many as 25 crew members out working on downed power lines and broken utility poles. It also has three contractor crews and three crews from neighboring utility companies working on power outages.
A BARC operations representative said that if its crews work from the source to the end of the lines, they hope that power will be restored to all customers by Friday night. He said some outlying areas at the end of the line may need work throughout the weekend.
Fairfield Volunteer Rescue squad opened a shelter at 5 p.m. Wednesday with volunteers from the Red Cross, but according to the squad, no one showed up. There aren't plans to keep the shelters open. A shelter at Natural Bridge Volunteer Fire Department had similar results. Several people ate dinner but none spent the night, according to The News-Gazette.
The storm also knocked out cell phone service for many wireless customers on Wednesday and part of Thursday. According to John Johnson, a Verizon spokesman, the storm caused multiple problems for Verizon customers.
"We had a large number of our cell sites running on backup power," Johnson said. The sites were forced to run on diesel generators and backup battery power because of the local power outages.
Johnson said the storm also knocked down several poles that serve to connect the wireless network with land lines.
Crews were out repairing the poles Thursday and Verizon hopes to have full service back by Thursday evening, Johnson said.
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead supervisor: Prof. Claudette Artwick
Reporting supervisors:
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd