Some 15,000 power outages throughout Southwestern Virginia Wednesday night as thunderstorms swept through the area.
Appalachian Power Company, which tends to downplay the actual number of power outages, admitted to at least 15,000 customers in the dark in Virginia, with 4,700 out in the Roanoke Valley, including 1,400 in Franklin County and an unspecified number in Floyd County.
At 4 a.m. Thursday, some 800 customers in Franklin County remained powerless along with smaller numbers in other areas.
APCO spokesman Theresa Hamilton Hall blamed the bulk of outages on the standard “transformer outage” excuse.
Ironically, the wave of outages came on the same day the electric company issued a news release saying it has taken “significant steps to prepare for severe thunderstorms.”
1 thought on “Powerless in Southwestern Virginia”
Some of the transformers are ancient. I called APCO a few years ago to see if they would go ahead and change my thirty year old, rusty transformer that buzzes every time it’s damp. They said that they wait for transformers to fail. Great – if mine blows, there will be PCBs all over the place, not to mention my LP tank is only a few feet away.
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