WSET.com - ABC13People Waiting to Get Power Restored

Reporter: David Tate

Roanoke, VA - Over in the western part of our viewing area, the winter weather knocked out power to more than 15,000 Appalachian Power customers, and many are still waiting for the power to turn back on.

The number of outages increased as the day went on because of the wet snow. That has since reversed as Appalachian officials called in more than 1,000 contractors to lend a hand.

As Wayne Palmer cleans up the mess from the season's first real snow, the sound of chainsaws on the hill over his home is music to his ears.

Palmer has been without power since Sunday night. He was digging out the driveway when it went from night to day and then to pitch black.

"Three flashes. Just daylight... three of them. We thought maybe a transformer blew," said Palmer.

Like thousands of others, Palmer is waiting on crews to get it all back on. Problem is Appalachian Power crews are waiting for tree clearing crews to finish their job as the heavy snow continued to knock out power into the afternoon.

"As the snow begins to melt, that branch pops back up. And as it comes back up, sometimes that catches the line and makes new outages or even just cause a fuse to blow," said Todd Burns with Appalachian Power Company.

It wasn't just power lines that suffered. Thousands of others lost cable TV and phone lines as well. Almost all of it is due to falling tree parts mixed with heavy snow, some of which almost hit Tiffany Joanis's house.

"The crack when the tree broke... it was kind of a strange sound," said Joanis.

The cleanup kept her up through the night.

"Since about four in the morning they've been chainsawing. So I've been up since four from chainsaws and haven't been back to bed since," she said.

At least she kept her power. Palmer's hope was he would be back online before another night was upon him.

They'll probably have it this afternoon they said. So that will be good," said Palmer.

At its peak, from Botetourt and Franklin Counties west through Montgomery County, roughly 15,000 households were without power over the past 24 hours.

Hundreds are still in the dark Monday night in the southeastern part of our market, with 700 of those in Amherst.