Some 1.2 Million Customers Lack Power After Isabel

Reuters ^ | 09-22-03

[Brian S]

Mon September 22, 2003 08:14 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - About 1.2 million homes and businesses in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia still had no power Monday morning after Hurricane Isabel marched up the East Coast, utilities said.

The powerful storm left more than 6 million customers in the dark from the Carolinas to Canada.

The utilities said it would be the end of the week before they restore power to all customers.

"This is a Herculean task. We've already restored power to more than 1 million customers. The bulk of the rest should be back on Thursday," said Jeff Zidonis, spokesman for the hardest hit utility Dominion Resources Inc. of Richmond, Virginia.

About 1.8 million of Dominion's Virginia and North Carolina utilities' 2.2 million customers lost power during the storm.

"We've restored power to all the hospitals and the 30 primary water pumping stations in our 30,000 square mile territory," Zidonis said.

Dominion has more than 9,700 lineman and tree trimmers in the field, up from 7,000 at the start of the storm.

Although the utilities have not calculated the cost of the disaster, several said this was the worst storm in their history with a price tag running into the millions.

"We're concentrating on restoring service to all our customers. Later, we'll figure out how much this cost. This is one of the biggest outages in our history and is going to cost in the millions," said Mike Grandillo, a spokesman at Allegheny Power, which serves about 1.4 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio.

The storm left more than 225,000 Allegheny Power customers in the dark, with about 17,000 still without electricity this morning. Allegheny Power is a unit of Allegheny Energy Inc. of Hagerstown, Maryland.

Other hard-hit utilities include: Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s Baltimore Gas and Electric utility with 238,000 still out and Pepco Holdings Inc.'s Pepco utility in Washington with 181,000 still out.

[Corin Stormhands]

A storm system thru Richmond this a.m. knocked out power for an additional 15,000 customers.

My neighborhood is on the vey bottom of the food chain when it comes to power outages...

[AdSimp]

I have seen very few messages from the Richmond gang.

Checking in here, got power back, no hope for cable, only get 1 TV station, but it is unwatchable, so no football, Fox News, or Cspan. But we are still civilized here, aren't we?

Of course, we are the luckiest people in the county. Some do not expect power back before mid October, a full 4 weeks after the storm.

[iceskater]

Hey there-
We got water and power back relatively quickly. Although, we had to throw away hundreds of dollars worth of food. And no damage to the house. We have some friends who weren't so lucky.

My sister lives in Hanover and isn't even guessing when she'll get power back. They've managed to wangle the use of a generator for the duration. We're both going to be getting generators when this is all over.

Haven't heard anything from sultan88. I hope he's ok. Sultan, are you there yet?

[AdSimp]

A co worker who has been tripping over his y2k generator for 4 years finally got a chance to use it. I don't know how long MY wife would tolerate such a big box in the dining room....

But you can be sure he is glad to have it.

[Mudboy Slim]

"Some do not expect power back before mid October, a full 4 weeks after the storm."

Hate to say it, but that might be me...no Dominion Power folks sighted near the downed lines leading to my neighborhood!!

I'm over it already...MUD

[AdSimp]

Well, first they have to plant the seed that grows into the tree that gets poisoned so the bugs dont eat it, then they shape it up and it becomes a telephone pole!

That's about what it will take. I cannot conceive of any utility that can afford to keep 10,000 power poles in reserve, and that is what they are telling us they need. Which means they might need twice that. If Dominion bought up all the available poles in the eastern half of the country, how long would it take to come up with 10,000?

Maybe for now they should just stick some of the fallen trees in the ground and string lines up on that.

[CFW]

My ex b-i-l who works for GA Power has been in NC, VA, and now Maryland. They've been working hard and doing the best they can. He hopes to come home for a rest this weekend.

[sultan88]

"And on the 11th Day God said, "Let the Sultan have power. And the Sultan received power and it was good."

Eleven days in the dark is a long time. Lot's of catching up to do.

[iceskater]

11 days - that's pretty bad. I think my sister has you beat though. She still doesn't have power.

I'm glad you're back! I was getting worried.

[Rebelbase]

There is a utility company depot in my town with at least 500 poles stacked up the last time I was by there.

And, as bad as this storm was for those who got hit hard, it may prove a blessing for the rest of us in NC. All of the weak limbs and branches in my area have fallen to ground leaving only the strongest branches. This will be a good thing come the winter ice storms.

[iceskater]

I hope you're right about that.

[mariejlt]

We finally got power back on Thursday, September 25 only to lose it again on Sunday, September 28. When we called we were told it will be October 6 when we get power again... conserve and make do is my mantra...

[mariejlt]

Oh,also, we are in eastern Gochland ...

[iceskater]

You have my sympathies. I'm sure you are sick and tired of the whole thing.

[jla]

Eleven days in the dark is a long time.

11 days? Heck, liberals do that for years without end!

By the way, I put a sign in my front lawn - Support President Bush & Our Troops.
I left for work last night at 6:30PM and it had been removed.
No rhyme nor reason as to whom the culprit(s) are.
There is a covenant here in the sub-division though. But I'd like to think if some neighborhood committee members took it they would have first informed me.

[jla]

Book Promotion

[sultan88]

"I left for work last night at 6:30PM and it (my sign) had been removed."

Now that ticks me off almost as much as Virginia Power(outage) does!

Let's get more of these signs and have the Redtablemeeting members display them prominently.

[Mia T]

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