LOUISA COUNTY, Va (WRIC) – Hundreds to thousands of people are still without power in Louisa, Caroline, Hanover and several other counties after Monday’s winter storm. For some, Wednesday was their third day without heat.
Rappahannock Electric Cooperative crews were out working in Louisa on Wednesday. Spokesperson Casey Hollins said power has to be restored to the substations and circuits before all members can have power back.
8News crews spoke to residents still without power in Louisa Wednesday who said they’ve never seen the snow and ice as bad as it is this week.
Crews were repairing a power pole that had fallen flat on the ground on Sandy Point Drive Wednesday. A car sat next to it with its windshield shattered.
“We haven’t had power now for two days,” said Louisa resident Donald Shaner, who said he and his wife Charlotte are using generator power to try and save their food. “We’re doing what we’ve got to do to survive.”
Ronda Hazelbaker lives a few miles away and showed 8News crews the debris that the storm left behind in her backyard. Pieces of a garden trellis sat broken in her front yard.
“Never seen nothing like this in my life,” she said, looking around at the aftermath.
She said she’s blessed to have a generator, but as of Wednesday morning, she ran out of gas.
Hazelbaker said she and her family have spent the last couple of days using a chainsaw to clean debris from the yard. She said the chainsaw broke and her family hasn’t been able to drive out to anywhere to get new blades.
In an interview with Shaner on Wednesday, he asked, where’s the leadership? He said he hasn’t seen any state crews on the ground helping.
“It took the neighbors and us all morning yesterday with tractors and chainsaws to get it open so at least one vehicle could get back there in case there was an emergency,” Shaner said, describing what he and his neighbors did to clear the road next to his.
As of 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, there were 52,195 REC members without power.
Here are some of the ongoing REC outages by county:
Caroline County: 5,450 members (41.68% of members)
Goochland County: 752 members (90.28% of members)
Hanover County: 4,723 members (58.52% of members)
Louisa County: 11,613 members (91.52% of members)
Spotsylvania County: 14,394 members (54.23% of members)
Stafford County: 188 members (100% of members)
Here are some of the ongoing Dominion Energy outages by county:
Goochland County: 3,670 customers
Louisa County: 3,490 customers
Orange County: 2,347 customers
Hollins said REC expects to have all substations and circuits reenergized by the end of the week. By the weekend, Hollins said all main power lines should be repaired, which she said means most members should get power back by the end of this weekend or week.
However, Hollins added that some outages far out in the country may last into next week.
