Some 260 electrical customers of Appalachian Power are in the Tuesday afternoon — part of 23,414 of the utility’s powerless homes and businesses in Southwestern Virginia.

Appalachian Power reports crews are on the scene in the county and working to restore power.

While power outages inVirginia are on the rise, Floyd’s APCO customers without electricity declined from a high of 570 earlier Tuesday.

High winds gusting to 50 miles per hour brought down trees across the county and some knocked out power lines.   A large pine punched a hole in a rental property belonging to Ronnie Dean Bolt home on Woods Gap Road and caused other damage.

A large branch on a tree at Floyd Baptist Church narrowly missed power, phone and cable TV lines on North Main Street.

With winds still blowing and gusting up to 50 miles per hour, more customers in the county could lose power Tuesday.  Power outages in Floyd County rose from 509 to 570 customers between 7 and 8 a.m. and then started to declined as crews worked to restore service.

APCO serves 9,141 business and residential customers in Floyd County.

Floyd County Schools were on a two-hour delay.  So is Patrick County.  Other area systems –Roanoke City, Roanoke County, Montgomery County, Franklin County — are closed.

Developing story.  Continuing…

(Updated at 1:50 p.m.)