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the ice storm several years ago,” Mr. Updike said, comparing it to an early winter storm in October 1979, which dropped a similar heavy snow that wrought havoc with power and telephone lines.
Mr. Updike said that “about 4,000” of Rappahannock Electric’s 48,000 customers were affected by the storm. He said the cooperative hoped to have power fully restored by sometime Wednesday.
Mr. Saufley said that “about 10 percent” of Potomac Edison’s 20,000 customers lost power because of the storm.
Rappahannock’s two telephone utilities fared better during the storm than did their electric counterparts. “I’m so pleased that people could use their telephones to report power outages,” said C & P Telephone community relations manager Jim Ellington. “It could have been a lot worse.”
A total of 220 customers in C & P’s Culpeper service area lost service due to the storm, but no Rappahannock County customers were affected. As of early Tuesday morning, 120 customers were still without service.
Mr. Ellington said the utility had 79 crews out, compared to 35 on a normal shift, and that “installation, engineering and construction crews were all pressed into service. We expect a return to normal by mid-day Tuesday.”
“We really dodged the bullet,” he added, considering the problems experienced by customers in the Washington, D. C., suburbs. Monday afternoon saw more than 1,000 customers still without service there, “and they don’t expect to be back to normal until Friday.”
CentePs Washington (675) exchange was unable to complete longdistance calls for some time Monday, but Centel spokesman Larry Mathiot said that problem was due to a C & P underground cable in Sperryville which was accidentally cut Sunday evening. He added that he was unaware of any complaints from customers in the Washington exchange involving other than storm-related problems.
Doug Bywaters, Rappahannock County’s highway department supervisor, reported that his qrews had “no real problems” clearing the county’s roads. He said that “80 to 90 percent” of the roads had been pushed by Monday afternoon. “The weather helped a lot - the sun shining really dried the roads up ... It wasn’t too hard to push,”
The highway department crews worked non-stop from Sunday afternoon until late Monday afternoon, * then returned Tuesday morning to finish the job. Mr. Bywaters said that in addition to regular highway department personnel several outside contractors with leased equipment assisted with snow removal.
Sheriff John Henry Woodward said that his department had no storm-related problems. Due to the power failure which affected most of the Town of Washington the emergency generator provided back-up power for the Sheriffs Department for several hours Monday, “but the »nly problem was power outages,” the sheriff reported.
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