Nearly 800 customers in West Virginia were still without power by 6 p.m. Thursday after downed trees into power lines caused thousands of outages around the state.
While hundreds of outages were reported in Logan, Lincoln and Wayne counties much of Thursday, only about 100 in Wayne County remained without power by the evening.
In Lincoln County, about 2,600 customers were without power shortly after 10 a.m. Among other Appalachian Power customers, outages were also reported in Boone, Cabell, Kanawha, Mingo and Roane counties.
Appalachian Power spokesman Phil Moye said that downed trees into power lines caused outages in Kanawha County. He wasn't sure what caused the outage in Lincoln County but believed it was a problem with the Midkiff substation.
Outages were also reported in the northern part of the state, served by FirstEnergy. Among the hardest hit was Lewis County, where more than 600 customers were still without power by 6 p.m. Thursday. Earlier that morning, roughly 4,800 customers were without power. Lewis County schools were closed due to the outages Thursday.
FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Meyers said the blackout in Lewis County occurred just after 6 a.m. when strong winds knocked down a large tree on Gee Lick Road near Weston, which knocked down a utility pole. The mishap affected equipment at a nearby distribution substation that opened three separate circuits, Meyers said.
Crews worked Thursday to reconfigure the affected distribution networks and isolate the damage, he added. He said the remaining outages should be repaired Thursday evening.
The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for parts of West Virginia through Friday. The target areas included Greenbrier, Mercer, Monroe and Summers counties. Sustained winds up to almost 40 mph or gusts of almost 50 mph were expected.
The weather service warned that driving could be difficult, that trees could be toppled and that more sporadic power outages could occur.