UPDATE: AEP District Manager: Power Outages “Unprecedented and Overwhelming”
Alternative content
AEP District Manager: Power Outages
American Electric Power, the company that owns Appalachian Power, serves 175,000 people in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Of those, roughly 50,000 customers are still without power.
UPDATE: Tuesday, 8:10 am
Thousands of power outages remain in the Tri-Cities, four days after a winter storm dumped several inches of snow on our region.
According to Appalachian Power, about 30,000 people are still in the dark in Southwest Virginia. They also report around 4,000 people without power in Northeast Tennessee.
Here is a breakdown of the approximate power outages Appalachian Power is reporting for the Tri-Cities region:
Tennessee:
Sullivan County
3,200
Hawkins County
650
Virginia:
Buchanan County
10,100
Dickenson County
6,900
Scott County
5,900
Russell County
2,900
Wise County
2,000
Washington County
1,100
Smyth County
900
Tazewell County
100
———
American Electric Power, the company that owns Appalachian Power, serves 175,000 people in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Of those, roughly 50,000 customers are still without power.
AEP District Manager Isaac Webb calls these outages “unprecedented and overwhelming.‘
When mother nature shuts off power inside, sometimes she leaves a solution outside. “Mayo, mustard…I just brought that out here so it wouldn’t spoil,“ said Ruth Grear. Like thousands in the Tri-Cities region, Grear and her family lost power Friday night when heavy snow pushed trees onto power lines. “We’re using a kerosene heater thank goodness,“ said Grear.
Downed power lines litter the Grear’s Kingsport neighborhood. Across Sullivan County, nearly 12,000 AEP customers still don’t have power. Line crew supervisor Chris Gilmer oversees 14 different circuits in the area. “We’ve got a lot of obstacles we’re dealing with,“ said Gilmer.
Originally, the main obstacle was impassable roads. From there, diagnosing all the problems. And now, with more than 1,000 problem areas, the shear size of the situation. “Every contractor that we can get a hold of…they’re bring them in just as fast as we can get everybody brought in,“ said Gilmer.
Making matters worse, trees are continuing to fall, snapping power lines like this one. “There’s no way to know when one’s going to fall just like the one that fell that took it down,“ said Gilmer.
Just when the power will return depend on where you live. Sullivan and Hawkins County should see light Monday or Tuesday. But, in places like Dickenson and Buchanan counties, some might be without power on Christmas.
Disheartening, but not a total loss for people like Ruth, who grew up in Scott County, Virginia without power. “Take a sponge bath like we did back in the old days,“ said Grear.
For a full video report, click play above.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
Posted by Jess024 “the power crews are doing the very best they can”.
Anyone beating the crews over the head about overtime pay needs to follow these people around for one fifteen hour shift. Every move they make could be their last. I did not work for the power company, but I have worked many all day, all night, and another eight before clearing outages, and “NO” amount of pay is worth that!!
Lay off the people trying to restore service. These people don’t sit in the ivory towers of APco and make decisions to forget proactive maintance of power lines, neither do they give input to yet another rate increase. The people who reside in these ivory towers gaze out over blue waters wondering where & how they can
squeeze in another rate increase without being cited by the state corp. commission for poor or rotten service.
These executives reside in a fantacy world that far exceeds anything Walt Disney ever produced. They are incapable of real management like trim out the lines and avoid all this trouble.
The real people to place pressure on is the Virginia State Corp. Commission who authorize the rate increases and seemingly never spot check the real quality service these people provide.
OK… I have read the comments on here I understand that people are frustrated at the situation.. And i do agree that something should be done to improve the power grid, but with that being said some of the people that are commenting on here are some of the most ungratful people I have ever heard. My husband has been gone since last Saturday working on this storm working 15hr days to help the situation. And the person saying that they heard the workers were making triple time working on Christmas is true, but let me ask this did you spend Christmas with your family and friends? it might not have been in ideal conditions, but did you spend it with them? Well my husband wasn’t home with his family he worked right through trying to get as many people as possible back in the light so YOUR Holidays would be a little brighter. so if you ask me triple time is what they all deserved that day. And yeah I guess he can do Christmas another day with his “Fat paycheck” as one person called it. So, while some of you may still be in the dark let me be the one to tell you that the power crews are out there working their butts off trying to get you all power, working through holidays and missing their families so why not try to be grateful for what you do have, and know that they are doing the very best they can.
AEP main problem is they don’t do preventive maintaince and are never prepared for emergencies. AEP main concern is raising the rates every 3 or 4 months and with complete disregard to their customers.
What we need is a little competition to stop all of these hikes. This is ridiculous!!!
Everyone needs to be on guard for a ice storm moving into parts of the Virginia area from North Carolina, along with expected high winds. I feel for those who have to sit in the cold and wait for AEP to “re-hook” them. I wonder why they can’t access potential problems in advance and be more prepared. All businesses should always have a plan and scenerio for emergencies, and for “unprecented” events and act accordingly for their customers.
AEP not only has sub-standard infrastructure, but also sub-standard management. Here,s the why.
We live in a mountainous area which is subject to high wind, flooding, and snow heavy enough to bring down large trees. The solution to this is to be proactive inharvesting trees that have the potential to cause outages.
The problem that sometimes occurs, Some owners refuse to allow trimming of their trees, but when the tree causes a problems, they want the utilities to clean up the mess.
The solution is simple. If AEP shows the owner that a certain tree needs trimming back because the size could interrupt service should it fall. If the owner refuses the trimming of the tree and service is interrupted, the owner pays the cost of removal of the tree and the cost of restoring service.
Now this sounds tough, but if AEP is trying to be pro-active by clear the right-of-way, I would give them a “A” for effort, but I bet they are sitting on their hands dis-reguarding the benefits of good public relations. They are like any monoply. They have a enbedded base of customers who have “NO” choice any they know it.
The second solution is we as customers need to require our elected officials to change local, state wide laws, ect. that hold people responsible for sitting on their hands and doing nothing but figuring out how to get another rate increase without improving service. AEP,s track record is absurd. The management of this utility sit among us without shame.
One other thing… Several years ago as we started losing our manufacturing base to foreign countries, the ezxperts in Washington started telling us that we now had a service-based economy rahter than a manufacturing economy. That’s fine, but you have got to have service, and what people are writing is that AEP’s service is sub-par.
John, I believe in capitalism. It’s one of the things that has made America great. But capitalism du jour is entirely selfish and that has opened up the door for the government to push state mandated programs on us, so you see corporate greed is at least partly responsible for the health care debacle we are about to inherit. I would love to put pressure on AEP by being able to choose my provider just as I can my telephone company. I meant what I said yesterday - the infrastructure of equipment that AEP uses has got to be substandard if we experience outages this frequently but northern states can get blizzards of up to 24-36 inches without losing power. I had access to a generator this time around, but it was only large enough to power my freezers. What kind of plan do you propose - save up for a 20,000 watt generator that automatically kicks in when the power goes out? If I could afford that I would run it all of the time and tell AEP to take a flying leap!
John, AEP wrote a standard “sorry you’re ticked” letter to several people who openly opposed the 12% increase after Oct 08’s increase of 19%. That letter said that we, as consumers, should do more to conserve. While I agree with that, I don’t agree with the part where AEP stated they had cut employees and were capping the salaries of those who remain-while there are people at the top earning over a million bucks a year and they still increase the price for their product. Personally, I think a company that values its customers and employees and stockholders would realize this is going to tick people off.
Let me put it this way: in your home, if you only had enough food for 3 people, who would get fed first? Your kids. With companies like AEP, the “kids” don’t come first, because the “kids” are a means to an end-money. Large corporations are not held accountable for their actions like we as parents are, or as small businesses are. If Food City increased their prices by over 30% in such a short time, I doubt you would shop there, right? I mean, you can decide not to rely on Food City or another grocer and grow your own and/or shop local farmers. But just like we rely on electricity in this modern age, we also rely on grocery stores. While it’s easy to say “take yourself off the grid”, its just as easy to say “stop shopping at grocery stores”. It can be done, but that doesn’t mean it’s a simple solution.
My sympathies lie with you and all the other people who lost power. My sympathies lie with the people who are going to have to choose between paying their electric bill or paying rent, or buying food or medicine. My sympathies are not with Michael Morris and his cronies who most likely have no idea what it’s like to see your kid sitting in front of a kerosene heater, or had to choose which bill they were going to pay that month.
Yes Betty I do have kids,three of them as a matter of fact, as if that has anything to do with it. They sat here and froze just like everybody else Thanks to me. I am the one responsible for having a backup plan, and failed. So yes I was very grateful when the power came back on. I’m grateful for everything I have. I could be like those poor souls that got kicked out of their trailers in the cold. Yes I’m very grateful. As for the big wigs. You don’t have to cheat and steal to get there. It helps to have a good education and work hard. So you want to cut their salaries for doing their job and making their stockholders money. You know of course those stockholders for the most part are people like you and I who have money invested in a retirement plan or mutual funds. You talk about a 30% increase. Wait until cap and trade passes. Then you will see a monster increase. As for the fuel issue, I can’t argue the point, but I do see everything going up.My grocery bill has doubled all at the same time as this. Anyway I think these guys do an awesome job. I very seldom lose power, and no I don’t live in an upscale neighborhood. Yes I do wish it was cheaper just like you, but I’m willing to pay the price for the lifestyle I enjoy.
Advertisement