CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- The 20,000 Dominion Energy customers who remained without power Friday afternoon following a powerful storm system that blew through Central Virginia on Thursday night should have their lights and air conditioners back up and running by 11 p.m., according to the utility.
At the height of Thursday night's outages, more than 100,000 customers were left in the dark.
Neighbors in the Surreywood community of Chesterfield County spent their Friday cleaning up after the storm.
Some people who have lived in Virginia for decades said the damage the severe thunderstorm caused reminded them of Hurricane Isabel.
"I made the same comparison when I drove through here today," Morgan Dean said. "There were more trees down in Isabel because, no joke, like every third tree fell, but this neighborhood had a ton of trees down."
Dean was called to the neighborhood after a tree nearly fell on his parents' home.
"It's a massive tree, it would have done a lot of damage. And that could have killed somebody if it had fallen on them. So you know, everybody's very blessed here," he said.
Dean said he was impressed with the way neighbors sprang into action to help each other.
"There was a crew of folks up and down the streets knocking on doors, to make sure that everybody was okay," he said. "They had chainsaws. They couldn't cut up everything, that's a monster-sized tree, but they were cutting off the limbs that they could to help people get past it where they could or get into their driveways and things like that."
Ken Van Auken, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 20 years, said for 15 or 20 minutes, the storm felt like a hurricane.
"It was like Isabel. I mean, the trees, it was incredible. It was mesmerizing to watch the way the trees were just swaying so much," Van Auken said. "Then you can hear the smaller branches hitting the roof and you're just hoping it's not one of the bigger ones."
Van Auken said the storm represented bad timing on many levels.
"I know the kids are miserable even though they were out of school, they were miserable. There's no there's no electricity. There are no video games. No internet. There's no air conditioning," he said. "[The storm knocked out power during] the first game of the NFL season. Of all the nights for this to happen. I mean, the gods must hate NFL fans."
Dean, who is also the spokesperson for Triple-A Mid-Atlantic, said questions about fallen trees and insurance are among the top questions asked after a storm. He said the damage caused by fallen trees was generally covered by the impacted homeowner's plan. He said it served as a good reminder for people to review their plans.
"See what's covered, what's not covered, reach out to your agent, and talk about expanding that coverage or making sure you've got the right kinds of comfort with it," he said.
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