NOVEC is working to have lights on for all customers by this evening, Dec. 11

Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative is working to restore power by Wednesday evening, December 11, to all customers who lost service during the December 9 and 10 ice and snow storms.

Crews are removing trees and branches from power lines at approximately 40 outage locations in Fairfax, Fauquier, Prince William and Stafford counties.

More than 34,000 customers lost power at the height of the storm Monday morning when ice-coated trees and branches outside NOVEC’s right-of-way corridors fell on power lines.

As of 10:30 a.m. on December 11, crews had 54 more customers to bring back online.

“We’ve had our Co-op and contract crews, as well as crews from Tennessee working day and night since early Monday morning when the first outages occurred,” says Larry Shaffer, vice president of System Operations.

“Working at night with chain saws and electricity in bitterly cold weather, with ice and snow hitting your face, is a tough and dangerous job. We have a hardy group of men and women who do this job and do it very well.  I thank them.”

Shaffer also thanks customers: “We know how cold and difficult it is for customers to be without power. We thank all of them for their patience in times like these.”

An outage summary is on NOVEC’s website at http://stormcenter.novec.com