Thousands without power as winter storm presses on

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) -Dominion Energy said that the Richmond Metro region is one of the hardest-hit areas across the state.

On Friday, the lights were out at Short Pump Town Center, among many other neighborhoods and buildings.

“We lost power early this morning, came back on for a little bit and then went back out for a few more hours,” said one man who lives in Richmond.

Dominion Energy reported that over 215,000 people across Virginia have been affected by the power outages since early Friday morning. Electric cooperatives like Southside and Rappahannock are also dealing with thousands of outages.

“We understand it’s stressful, particularly during the holidays, to be without power,” explained Dominion Energy spokesperson Craig Carper.

According to Carper, Dominion has crews out trying to turn the lights back on for people. It could take anywhere from 15 minutes to more than an hour to fix the power once crews arrive.

“The thing about wind is that it’s fast-moving, so it’ll blow for awhile, and then it’ll kind of calm down, so we wait for those windows to get in and repair lines when it’s safe to do so,” Carper stated.

When mass outages happen, they prioritize critical public infrastructures, such as hospitals, police departments and nursing homes. Once those are restored, crews will respond to calls in order of the highest volume of people impacted to the lowest. Such places as apartment complexes will have a higher priority.

“We do have our team fully mobilized, so we’ll see as things die down if areas are less affected outside of our service territory and they have crews to spare. We may rely on them; we’ll see how things go,” Carper said.

Dominion Energy said storm debris like downed trees could cause delays for crews working to fix your power.

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