Apr. 2—At 3:15 p.m., Appalachian Power released its first storm response update following a powerful line of storms packing high winds and heavy rain which passed across Appalachian Power’s West Virginia service area late this morning into early afternoon, leaving 123,000 customers without electric service. The storm caused extensive damage, and further severe weather is expected tonight, the release said, adding that additional outages are expected as storm activity continues through tonight.

The company planned for outages from the storm by having more than 200 company and contract workers on storm response alert. Those workers are now traveling to areas with heavy damage to assist with service restoration.

Crews are working to restore power on large known outages, and damage assessors are patrolling lines in damaged areas to determine resources needed to make repairs.

An additional 1,000 storm response workers from states as far away as Indiana and Missouri are being mobilized to assist in West Virginia, the release stated.

According to Appalachian Power, restoration estimates are as follows:

—Wednesday, April 3 at 11 p.m. for approximately 90 percent of customers in Boone, Logan, Mingo and Raleigh counties.

—Thursday, April 4 at 11 p.m. for approximately 90 percent of customers in Cabell, Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Mason, Nicholas, Putnam, Roane and Wayne counties.

—Most customers currently without service will have power restored before the overall estimates stated above. Customers are encouraged to view the company’s outage map or sign up for outage alerts for information on their specific outage.

—Restoration may extend further in isolated instances where extensive repairs are needed.

—Additional severe weather and associated outages are expected through tonight, which could extend current overall estimates.

More bad weather with wind gusts over 30 mph will create unsafe conditions for working aloft in buckets, which could slow restoration efforts in some areas, the company reported.

Customers should treat all downed lines as live power lines and stay away from them. Never touch downed power lines or sparking equipment. Keep children and pets away from fallen lines and anything the lines may touch.

For additional safety tips, visit https://www.appalachianpower.com/safety/ as possible.

Customers can get specific information about the outages affecting their accounts via text message and/or email by subscribing to Appalachian Power outage alerts. To sign up, please visit Appalachian Power alerts.

A snapshot view of current outages is available anytime by visiting Appalachian Power’s Outage Map.