Contact: NOVEC Public Relations, 1-888-335-0500, customerservice@novec.com
Service restoration work continued through the night and approximately 1,000 additional NOVEC customers are back on line this morning. Construction and tree crews remain in the field and will be working around the clock until all service has been restored.
At the height of the intense “Derecho” storm system that swept through Northern Virginia Friday night with wind gusts of up to 80 mph, 37,000 NOVEC customers lost power. Most outages were caused by felled and broken trees, as well as broken poles and damaged equipment. As of 9:00 a.m. today, 4,584 customers remain without power.
Restoring service for the remaining customers will take time, cautions Larry Shaffer, manager, system operations. “We still have in excess of 200 outage locations to close. Many of the remaining outages affect only a few customers, so while progress will continue to be steady, we are far from finished. Our service restoration team is focused on the task at hand and has performed exceptionally well. With the extra resources we now have working on the system, I am confident we will get the job done safely and as quickly as possible. We understand the challenges an extended outage represents for our customers and our work will continue 24/7 until the last customer is back on line,” says Shaffer.
Lingering Verizon phone system problems have affected inbound and outbound calling, hampering service restoration efforts by making it more difficult to communicate with customers and employees in the field. “We’re finding ways to work around it, but we’re hoping Verizon can fix the problem soon. Unavailability of reliable phone service certainly adds another layer of difficulty to service restoration,” notes Shaffer.
NOVEC customers with internet access can track service restoration progress here: http://stormcenter.novec.com/index.cfm . Customers may also check the status of an outage by calling NOVEC’s automated phone system at either of the phone numbers listed below. Outage status information is updated frequently to reflect the latest conditions from the field.
Safety is always a top priority for our employees and customers. Downed power lines and trees touching the lines are extremely dangerous and should never be touched. Downed power lines should be immediately reported by contacting NOVEC at 703-335-0500 or toll free at 1-888-335-0500.
A county by county outage summary is posted below:
