As of 8 p.m. Saturday, Danville Utilities reports that approximately 800 of its electric customers remain without power as a result of Friday night’s wind storm. Crews will continue to work around the clock until all power is restored.
While efforts are being made to restore power as quickly as possible, some areas will not be restored until Sunday. Those areas include:
• West Main Street and Mount Vernon Avenue
• Golf Club Road
• Cascade
• Kentuck
• Scattered sections around Westover Drive
Numerous single outages are scattered throughout the service territory.
UPDATE at 4 P.M.:
As of 4 p.m. Saturday, Danville Utilities reports that approximately 1,000 of its electric customers remain without power. New reports, however, still are being received.
Single outages are scattered throughout the service territory, but the areas with the largest concentration of outages are U.S. 58 East (mostly in Halifax County, which includes Virginia International Raceway), Windsor Heights, Golf Club Road and Route 360.
The outages in these locations are the result of broken utility poles.
ORIGINAL NEWS RELEASE:
Powerful windstorms that blew through the Danville area last night at approximately 10 p.m. left nearly 10,000 customer locations without electric power. Crews worked through the night and will continue to work on a 24-hour schedule until service is restored to all customers. As of noon today, approximately 1,100 customer locations remained without electricity. Outages were widespread throughout Danville Utilities’ 500-square mile service territory.
Public Works crews also worked through the night clearing downed trees and limbs from city streets. Over 50 trees, some very large, were reported down due to high winds. Affected streets were closed to traffic in several locations, including West Main Street, while trees were cut up and removed.
“Our employees are working as hard as they can to get power restored and fallen trees removed from public streets as quickly as possible,” said City Manager Joe King. “I’m very proud of the quick response and dedicated work of public safety, utilities, and public works employees in responding to this storm. The only problem we’ve encountered has been with our outage telephone call-in system. Some customers simply couldn’t get through to register their outages. I apologize for that.” King said that the power outage call-in system will soon be replaced by a more reliable system.
As of noon today, the City had received no requests for cooling center accommodations. Joe King said that the City encourages family, friends, and churches to help those in need of a place to cool down. However, with hot temperatures and no electric power available in some homes for cooling, the City is also making arrangements to establish cooling centers for those who need them. Joe King indicated that the Fire Department will issue a media release if centers are activated.
Property owners experiencing damage to buildings have been encouraged to contact their insurance companies. Claims involving damage by city-owned trees should be reported to the City Attorney’s at telephone number 799-5122.
