Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative members who live north of Harrisonburg may not have their power restored until Tuesday night.
Persistent winds and soggy ground on Sunday led to outages across SVEC’s service territory as many off right-of-way trees fell bringing down power lines and breaking electric distribution equipment.
“Given the extent of damage, in terms of the widespread nature of it, members who live north of Harrisonburg in SVEC’s service territory should make plans to be out of service until Tuesday night. The territory extends to the West Virginia line in northern Frederick County,” a statement from SVEC said.
On Sunday, SVEC said it hoped to restore all power by 10 p.m. tonight. SVEC is encouraging members to make arrangements for an extended power outage.
As of 10:30 a.m., SVEC has 1,900 outages at more than 100 locations. A large contingent of co-op personnel continue to scout locations to capture the full extent of damage that needs repair with about a dozen broken poles and a significant amount of broken wire identified so far.
Estimated times for restoration will be updated in its outage map throughout the day.
Some members who are estimated to be restored Tuesday will be back on Monday, however, SVEC cannot confirm those locations at this time.
The safest precaution for these members, specifically those north of Harrisonburg, is to make accommodations to be out of service into Tuesday.
SVEC maintains more than 8,000 miles of electric lines in Winchester and the counties of Augusta, Clarke, Frederick, Highland, Page, Rockingham, Shenandoah and Warren.
Dominion Energy reports 14,636 customers in Virginia without power as of 11 a.m. Charlottesville seems to have the most outages, with 4,133 customers out, according to an online outage map.
SVEC: Tips for extended outages
- Anyone who relies on electricity to power life-sustaining equipment should make alternative arrangements.
- Restoration is prioritized by first rectifying locations with the most members affected, as those issues are more likely to resolve problems for everyone further down the line.
- After an outage, throw out perishable food in your refrigerator after four hours.
- If you have a generator, please make sure it is properly connected for the safety of lineworkers. Never connect a standby generator to your home’s electrical system.
- Do not touch downed power lines, or try to remove trees or limbs from downed lines.
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Crystal Graham
