It was a long holiday weekend for employees of Mon Power, a part of First Energy Corp.
With power outages first reported on Christmas Eve and temperatures dropping to the single-digits in some areas, line-workers braved the frigid conditions for more than 48-hours to restore service to the majority of southern West Virginia.
In a social media post from early-afternoon on Saturday, Dec. 26, the Frankford Volunteer Fire Department said, “One of the main/large transmission lines had a failure which caused the outage in Lewisburg this morning. Linemen have been on-scene since before daylight. The power had to be shut down/disconnected so repairs could be made. Most of these guys have been working since Christmas Eve when the storm hit on outages all over Southern W.Va.
Please say a special prayer for the repair crews working to fix the problem!!!”
At approximately 10 a.m. on Saturday, Jay Morris of the Greenbrier County Homeland Security office of Emergency Management posted the following statement on Facebook:
“Current Mon Power outage in Greenbrier County at 1,948 customers since 5:30 a.m., mainly in Lewisburg area. Outage due to repairs ETA 9 a.m. – noon. Impacting 6,000 customers in Lewisburg, Renick, Frankford, Asbury and Clintonville. ETA for restoration 1 p.m. for all areas. Mon Power is working through the holidays to fix the problem, so thank them, quit complaining and check on your neighbors and seniors in the area. They are doing all they can to get power back to everyone ASAP.”
Shortly after 2 p.m., Morris provided an additional update.
“Mon Power outage numbers down to 153 now from 6,000 as they energize each outage-area. Remaining outages in Clintonville, Crawley, Frankford, Lewisburg and Williamsburg restoration ETA 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.”
There had been much confusion as to whether or not the power outage was planned. Many Mon Power customers received a phone call early Saturday morning (12/26) advising them that the planned outage was imminent so that emergency repairs could be made.
However, a statement released by the Greenbrier County Courthouse read, “The power outage this morning in Greenbrier County was not planned and the Mon Power linemen are working quickly to restore the power as quickly as possible.”
As of noon on Sunday, Dec. 27, Mon Power reports that power has been fully restored to nearly all of their West Virginia customers.
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