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An electrical worker finishes up with a power line off National Road on Wednesday. Crews from around the country came to Wheeling to help restore power to thousands.
WHEELING — Crews descended on Wheeling from around the country to help restore electricity to the thousands without it in the city and surrounding areas, with service restored to some of the area near National Road late Wednesday afternoon.
AEP says other parts of the county may remain without power until Friday.
Ohio County Director of Emergency Management Lou Vargo said around 4 p.m. Wednesday that the area around Wheeling Park, dubbed “ground zero” due to the extensive storm damage, should have seen power restored to about 1,500 homes before 6 p.m.
“The National Road area … which received most of the damage, they’re thinking another 1,500 customers should be coming on within an hour or so (Wednesday) so they’re making progress,” he said. “Right now, they have about 50 crews, they have additional crews coming up from Virginia, so there is significant progress being made on restoration.”
The Wheeling area is dealing with the overwhelming majority of those outages — 6,183 as of Wednesday evening.
The power outage problem was exacerbated by the oppressively hot temperatures found in the Ohio Valley on Wednesday, with the heat index pushing past 100 degrees.
Hundreds of line workers and repair crews have been working since dawn broke Tuesday morning to restore power in the wake of the two derechos that blew through before daybreak Tuesday.
More than 40 crews of three or four people worked 16-hour shifts Wednesday, as American Electric Power attempted to restore power. AEP External Affairs Manager Joelle Moray said the local Wheeling crews put in significant work the first day after the storms, restoring power to around 7,000 of the initial 16,000 left in the dark.
“Yesterday, a lot of it was getting out there and assessing, trying to get our heads around what the damage was,” Moray said. “There was some significant progress made on day one — at the peak, 16,000 customers were without power, and by the end of the day, that number was down to 9,000, and that was just with our local crews, and that’s before any outside crews had arrived.”
Photo Courtesy of Wheeling Police Department – Members of Ohio County Emergency Management, the Wheeling Police Department, Wheeling Fire Department and other Wheeling city officials monitor the progress made in restoring power in the city following this week’s storms.
By Wednesday, crews from Virginia and Kentucky had been brought in to assist in the cleanup, working alongside others such as tree trimming crews to get the grid back online.
Vargo added that the National Guard had been activated by Gov. Jim Justice, and that two units from the guard should arrive by Thursday to assist in cleanup efforts.
These crews are working in heavy, fire-rated protective equipment from the soles of their feet to their fingertips, adding an additional layer of discomfort to an already daunting physical challenge of working outdoors in the heat.
“These folks are working 16-hour shifts. It’ll be midnight or later before they wrap up,” Moray added. “They’re definitely working around the clock. … Line worker safety will always be our No. 1 priority. These are very dangerous jobs these folks have, and they’re very dangerous conditions they’re working in now. It is hot — it takes your breath away.
“These line workers are wearing fire-rated pants, fire-rated shirts, heavy steel-toed boots, rubber boots on top of those, these giant gloves, another set of gloves on top of that – they are layered. … These are men and women who are highly trained to work in these conditions, but nevertheless, heat stroke and heat exhaustion and those types of things are very real, so we do a lot to prepare them, with safety briefings on staying hydrated, what sorts of things they should be eating and drinking, and so on.”
Moray added that AEP workers have a culture of “being my brother’s keeper,” and that crew members will keep an eye out for their fellow workers out in the field.
“They are making significant progress; there are a few areas that are priorities, the areas with the most significant damage and trying to get as many people restored as possible,” Moray said. “The conditions are still very dangerous. We know it’s exciting, people want to see the damage, but you have to exercise extreme caution and safety in these conditions, and they’re always changing – we’re hearing there may be more weather coming. … They might fix one thing, and that repair might open up 20 other things they didn’t even know about, like a domino effect.”
Additionally, Vargo said, the City-County Building and the U.S. Federal Building both had power restored by late Wednesday afternoon, as did much of downtown and East Wheeling. Power to the south end of Wheeling Island is provided through a substation in Bridgeport, which also recently was brought back online, and crews will continue working to address that area as well.
“The south end of the Island, that power comes from Ohio through Bridgeport, then under the river to the south end of the Island. They have power restored to Bridgeport, and they have (crews) cleaning up any downed lines there. As soon as they get those lines taken care of, power will be restored to the south end of the Island,” Vargo said.
Storms across West Virginia on Monday night into Tuesday knocked out power for tens of thousands across the state and Wheeling was one of the hardest hit areas. As of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, there were 6,423 customers still without power in Ohio and Marshall counties, according to AEP’s outage map.
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The City of Wheeling announced Wednesday afternoon that its municipal offices at 1500 Chapline St. will reopen for ...
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