RICHMOND, Va. -- After multiple crews and bucket trucks got to work Saturday morning to quickly and safely make repairs to damaged power lines, Dominion Power says that nearly 70 percent of their customers have had their power restored and that 90 percent of all customers should receive power by Saturday night.
Crews and contractors worked around the clock over the last 36 hours and have been able to restore power to 169,000 customers who lost power Thursday night and early Friday morning in wake of the severe thunderstorms that caused tremendous damage and knocked the power out in most of the greater Richmond area Thursday night.
Efforts will continue until power is restored to the remaining 86,000 customers who receive service from Dominion Power, with the vast majority of those still without power being in the Richmond area, which experienced the most damage.
The storms were the most severe to hit the Richmond area since the historic derecho of June 2012.
Robert M. Blue, president of Dominion Virginia Power, released this statement about the power restoration efforts:
We would like to thank our customers for their continued patience during the restoration process. In some instances, the damage is so severe ‒ with multiple broken poles and cross arms, spans of wire down and transformers damaged ‒ that the electrical system there needs to be rebuilt. Based on our damage assessments, we expect to have power restored to the vast majority of Central Virginia by 11 pm Sunday night.
As crews arrive to make repairs at each location, individual restoration times will also be made available.
Customers are also encouraged to check back on their outage status frequently through the automated phone system at 866-DOM-HELP or online at http://www.Dom.com/outage.
