Charleston, W.Va., June 30, 2012 – Nearly 60 percent of Appalachian Power's customers are without electric service as a result of Friday night’s storm. In West Virginia, 323,000 of the company's half-million customers are without electric service as a result of the storm. In Virginia, 234,000 of the company's half-million customers are without electric service. The company has about 1 million customers.

Damage assessment specialists are fanned out across Appalachian's service area assessing damage to electrical facilities. The information they are gathering is being used to determine the level of resources needed to restore service, and to provide restoration estimates. Simultaneously, line workers are clearing known safety hazards and working to repair outages that affect critical infrastructure or large numbers of customers.

More than 50 substations are out of service, indicating damage to the company's transmission system. Assessors are patrolling the company's transmission system by helicopter today to determine the extent of damage.

 “Today, our top priority is assessing the damage throughout our service territory,” said Phil Wright, vice president of operations. “Although an overall restoration estimate based on damage assessment will be given later today, it is clear this is a multi-day restoration effort. “

More than 1,500 tree removal workers, damage assessment specialists, company line mechanics and outside line contractors are dedicated to the restoration effort.

A "snapshot" view of current outages is available anytime at AppalachianPower.com. Go to the Outages and Problems section of the site and click "View Outage Map."

Appalachian Power has 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.