RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Electric cooperatives across Central Virginia are still reporting thousands of power outages following Monday’s winter storm.
The Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC) said their crews were struggling to work on outages due to treacherous driving conditions. People in their coverage areas could be without power through the weekend and into next week.
The cooperative covers the counties between Hanover County and Fredericksburg as well as counties to the northwest towards Shenandoah. The Fredericksburg region was hit especially hard by the winter storm and major traffic issues ensued including an Interstate 95 shutdown spanning two days.
The REC said crews have had difficulties traveling through the area and have had to remove obstacles like trees from smaller roads.
The cooperative has over 1,000 people working to address the outages, including mutual-aid crews from several other states.
“The heavy wet snow – as much as a foot in many places – coupled with 40-mph winds made this one of the worst winter storms in many years,” said Casey Hollins, Managing Director of Communications and Public Relations for REC. “Crews will work around the clock as quickly and safely as they can to make repairs and restore service.”
As of 10:15 p.m. there were 66,065 members without power.
Here are some of the ongoing REC outages by county:
Caroline County: 7,848 members (60.02% of county members)
Goochland County: 738 members (88.6% of county members)
Hanover County: 5,323 members (65.95% of county members)
Louisa County: 11,615 members (91.54% of county members)
Stafford County: 188 members (100% of county members)
In other parts of the state outages are smaller in number but still ongoing. The Northern Neck Electric Cooperative announced on Tuesday night that they had restored 70% of power outages caused by the snow and ice. This left about 2,400 households still without power on Tuesday night.
Here are some of the ongoing NNEC outages by county:
King George County: 1,300 members (45.1% of county members)
Stafford County: 696 members (73.8% of county members)
Richmond County: 76 members (3.3% of county members)
Westmoreland County: 283 members (4.7% of county members)
The Southside Electric Cooperative services areas west and southwest of Richmond including Blackstone and Lynchburg. The co-op faced power outages spanning over a week last year. Following Monday’s storm relatively small percentages of their service areas remain without power. As of Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. there were 4,475 members without power and 3,623 with restored power.
Here are some of the ongoing SEC outages by county:
Powhatan County: 2,200 members (33.6% of county members)
Amelia County: 459 members (9.7% of county members)
Cumberland County: 502 members (35.7% of county members)
Nottoway County: 29 members (0.8% of county members)
