WSET.com - ABC13Hundreds Continue to Wait for Restored Power

Reporter:  David Tate

Roanoke Co., VA. - It's been nearly 48 hours since more than 15,000 people across our viewing area lost power, and several hundred are still in the dark as of Tuesday evening.  Many of them are in the Roanoke Valley.

On the flip side, more than 90% of affected customers have had their power restored.  However if you are in the minority, there's very little consolation to take from that.  

People like David Robinson who found warmth in the sun while hoping the power crew working in his backyard will finally get the power on. Inside, his wife Kathie is hoping they won't have to throw away even more food than they already have.

"Two nights. Two cold nights. It's about 45 degrees in our house right now," said Kathie Robinson.

To make matters worse, Robinson's husband needs power to help alleviate a medical condition, which is also affecting his job.

"As a truck driver, if you are on a CPAP machine, you have to use it at least four hours a night and if you don't do that you are not allowed to drive. You would be disqualified," said Kathie Robinson.

"I know customers are starting to get frustrated with it. We are working absolutely as hard as we can, as fast as we can to get the work done safely and quickly," said Todd Burns with Appalachian Power.

Appalachian Power officials say they are doing everything they can to get the power back on.  Like a war, they say they've won the big battle. Now it's a matter of mopping-up the smaller pockets of resistance.

"These longer outages are normally outages that are affecting a handful of customers to 20 customers. So that's kind of prolonging it," said Burns.

It hasn't been easy for Appalachian Power. The Roanoke Civic Center's south lot has been turned into command central - where contractors meet, get supplies and are assigned to the more than 150 calls that needed to be filled on Tuesday alone.

Knowing that each call has another Kathie on the other end of the line.

"Actually we had to sleep on the couch last night because it was warmer than the bedroom," said Robinson.

Overall as of 5 p.m., more than 700 customers in Roanoke City and county are still waiting as are more than 1,100 customers in Henry County.  At the latest, ApCo hopes to have everyone in our viewing back online by midnight Wednesday.