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There are 656 people still without power this morning in Buckingham County. In Cumberland, the number is 681, while 390 homes are in the dark in Prince Edward. The Herald has reached out this morning to Dominion, Central Virginia Electric Cooperative (CVEC) and Appalachian Power, all of whom have multiple outages to deal with. 

The answer from all three is that they’re working on the situation, but it will take most of the day to get everyone’s lights back on. CVEC, for example, is dealing with seven outages impacting 678 members. They’ve called in crews from Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, one of their mutual aid partners, to try and speed up the repairs. The goal is to have all their lines repaired and homes restored by afternoon. Dominion officials say it’s going to take a bit longer than that to get all of their customers back to normal.  

“We expect all customers will have their power restored by 11 p.m. Tuesday,” Dominion officials said in a statement. “We’ve moved additional crews into the hardest hit areas in Central and Southside Virginia. We are updating individual estimated restoration times on the Dominion Energy mobile app and website, as crews assess damage and begin making repairs.” 

And that 11 p.m. deadline is a ‘if everything goes according to plan’ scenario. That doesn’t take into account what work crews may find as they head into these areas. With the wind picking up this morning, there could be additional trees and power lines down.

Rising temperature could trigger more outages

One thing all of the groups agree on is that Sunday and Monday’s snowfall is only part of the problem. As temperatures rise and ice begins to melt today, that’s all going to refreeze on trees and power lines. Both Dominion and CVEC officials warn residents that there could be another series of “isolated” outages tonight as a result.