RICHMOND, Va. -- For some metro-Richmond residents, the snowfall is a one-two-punch on top of the frigid, blustery weather that knocked out power to thousands over the weekend.
Virginia Dominion Power crews were still hard at work as the snow began to fall, working to restore electricity to those who lost it over the weekend; at the height of the outage 173,000 homes were powerless. That number had been reduced to just over a thousand by Monday.
Many residents were worried that the winter snow storm would leave them in the dark again, but Dominion, as well as forecasters, did not expect heavy wind or mixed precipitation with the snowfall.
“We’re keeping a very, very close eye on this new storm front that’s headed this way,” said Dominion spokesman David Botkins. “Operationally, in terms of operational threats, it doesn’t look right now that it’s going to be that big.”
“The real challenge is going to be on the roadways, getting around, our crews and trucks and personnel,” he added.
Roxanne Wilson, who lost power over the weekend, now says she anticipates the worst.
"Very big fear, we're going to do everything we can to stock up and prepare because now I'm assuming it will go out, not that it will stay on,” she said.
Regardless of the outages, most people think Dominion did a good job working to restore as fast as they could.
"Yea it would be bad if we lost it again, I'm pretty confident in those guys, I think they did a good job,” said Paul Pesko, who also lost power for more than a day.
Keep the numbers below handy in the event you lose power. Also, if you lose power, go around and turn off or unplug the appliances that were on, so that you don’t stress the circuits or have everything come on later when you may not be at the house.
SAVE THESE NUMBERS:
Dominion Virginia Power – 1-866-DOM-HELP (1-866-366-4357) [Click here to see a Dominion outage map]
Rappahannock Electric Cooperative – 1-800-552-3904 [Click here to see a REC outage map]
Southside Electric Cooperative – 1-866-878-5514 [Click here to see a SEC outage map]
