DINWIDDIE COUNTY, Va. -- As the cold rain came down Thursday morning in Dinwiddie County, linemen with Dominion Energy continued working to restore power to those who lost electricity during last weekend's ice storm.
“I’ve worked a lot of ice storms. I’ve worked a few hurricanes. This is probably the worst ice storm I have seen in my career," Tim Luettel, who has worked as a lineman for 40 years, said.
The ice storm broke power poles and downed power lines.
It also left lines snarled in webs of broken trees.
“Right now, we have a grove of trees that have laid over because of the ice," lineman Sean Jones said. "We got to get some tree crews in there to help us cut the limbs, so we can try to get the wire back up, to a customer on the other end."
Members of the Virginia Beach-based Dominion Energy crew were not sure when they would get the job done and head home.
"We were told to pack for three days when we came here the first time," Luettel said. "We’re beyond our three days."
Jones said during their 15-hour workdays, they stayed focused on figuring out how to get the lights back on.
As of Thursday afternoon, Dominion Energy reported 17 of its customers without power in Dinwiddie.
Nearly 5,000 Southside Electric Cooperative customers in Dinwiddie remain in the dark.
