
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994                   TAG: 9403060094
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Lisa Applegate
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

APCO STILL BATTLING DOWNED LINES

Although Saturday's springlike temperatures melted the remaining ice from Wednesday's storm, thousands of Southwest Virginia residents are still suffering the aftereffects.

At 9 p.m. Saturday, Appalachian Power Co. reported a total of 14,645 customers in its Roanoke division still without power. Of those, 6,075 were in the Roanoke Valley, 2,810 in the Rocky Mount area, 4,000 in Henry County and 1,760 in Patrick County.

In the Pulaski division, 4,737 New River Valley customers were still without power, as were 779 customers in Apco's Lynchburg division.

Apco division manager Tom Jobes said extra work crews from as far north as Ohio and as far south as South Carolina are working to restore service.

"We've seen a 20 percent increase in personnel. Anyone we've asked was willing to come again, including a few local workers from Salem and Martinsville."

Jobes said he expects most customers to have power restored by late today. He said trees, bent or broken from the weight of the ice, caused most of the problems. "We've got tree-clearing crews as well as service restoration crews out."

Any Roanoke Valley residents who have not yet reported an outage can call 985-2727. Jobes said that 25 operators are taking more than 1,000 calls an hour. - LISA APPLEGATE

by CNB