Winter storm brings power outages, leaves utilities customers in the dark

Winter Storm Blair knocked out utilities for hundreds of thousands of customers across the U.S., leaving many American households in the dark Monday. 

More than 300,000 electric customers were without power as of late Monday morning, led by the state of Virginia where nearly 110,000 customers are without power, according to PowerOutage.us.

More than 76,000 Kentuckians had also lost power, followed by more than 50,000 West Virginians, nearly 36,000 customers in Illinois, and more than 30,000 customers in Missouri, according to the power outage-tracking site. Texans and Kentuckians also suffered outages. No power outages were reported for any other U.S. states. 

Virginians were hit the hardest by the storm, with roughly 3% of the state’s electric customers without service. 

Some of the largest electricity providers, including Dominion Energy, Appalachian Power Company and Southside Electric Cooperative each had thousands of customers without power, according to PowerOutage.us.

Dominion issued an alert on its website stating that Winter Storm Blair had impacted its service. The electricity provider said its crews were working “to restore power as safely and quickly as possible.”

It also urged customers to stay at least 30 feet away from all downed wires and damaged equipment. 

Nearly 17,000 Kentucky Utilities customers were in the dark. The company similarly warned customers to stay away from downed wires, and to report them to the provider. 

“Always assume any downed wire is an energized power line,” the company said in a social media post.