Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994 TAG: 9402180164
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BONNIE WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Members of the House Corporations, Insurance and Banking Committee, which handles legislation involving utility companies, praised the chiefs of Appalachian Power Co., Virginia Power and the Old Dominion Electric Cooperatives for efforts to restore electric service to more than 270,000 customers statewide after last week's ice storms.
One lawmaker even reported that boards of supervisors in six counties were preparing resolutions of commendation for the utilities.
Though the committee's invitation to the utility executives sounded like a summons, the meeting quickly took on a friendly tone. One of the executives, Virginia Power chief James Rhodes, was welcomed as the husband of Del. Anne Rhodes, R-Richmond.
He and his colleagues are well-known to the lawmakers not only because of his wife, but also because of their frequent financial support of legislative campaigns.
The 22 committee members received $11,758 in campaign aid last year from three political action committees affiliated with electric utilities, according to figures on file at the state Board of Elections. Committee chairman George Heilig, D-Norfolk, got $1,000 of that, and some other members did even better.
"We know you were doing everything humanly possible" to restore power to Virginians, Heilig told the utility chiefs. "It's just, a lot of members got inquiries from many of their constituents about why they couldn't get their electricity back on.
"We know it wasn't just a one-day storm, but something that happens almost once a century. It was difficult to get trucks and men to some of these places. But you've done a heroic job."
More than 40 cities and counties suffered power failures after an ice storm cut a wide swath through the state beginning Feb. 10. A second blast of arctic air brought another sheet Feb. 12.
The Department of Emergency Services estimated that about 273,000 customers across Virginia lost power at the height of the storm.
Power company officials, who told lawmakers Thursday that crews have worked around the clock to remedy the problems, said all electricity should be restored this weekend.
Lawmakers questioned whether better tree trimming and general maintenance of utility rights of way would have prevented limbs from falling on electric lines.
But the power company executives said no, and Bill Stephens of the State Corporation Commission, which regulates the utilities, agreed.
The public has become more sensitive to tree pruning, and many trees toppled by the ice were on private property outside utility rights of way, several executives told the lawmakers.
The cost of switching to underground electric cables would be prohibitive, several added.
"Given the nature of the storm, all the rights of way could have been clear-cut - that is, every tree could have been cut back to ground level - and the impact on service reliability would have been minimal," Stephens said.
"The size of the storm was unprecedented," said Charles Simmons, an Apco vice president.
He said 5,100 of the 172,000 Apco customers who were without electricity after the storms were still without power Thursday.
"Given the circumstances, I don't think we could have done anything differently," Simmons said.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB