RICHMOND, Va. - Dominion
(NYSE: D) began sending more than 350 linemen, support teams, contractors and
tree trimmers south Friday to help North Carolina's electric utilities restore
power and recover from the worst ice storm to hit the Tar Heel State.
"We were fortunate that the storm was not nearly as bad
as it could have been in the areas we serve," said Jay L. Johnson, president
and chief executive officer of Dominion Virginia Power and Dominion North Carolina
Power, which delivers electricity to more than 2 million customers in the two
states. "We are at the point in our restoration effort that we can begin
releasing crews to assist both Carolina Power & Light and Duke Power, just
as they have helped us recover from previous storms."
The storm that struck late Wednesday and early Thursday affected
nearly 68,000 Dominion customers in primarily rural Virginia and northeastern
North Carolina. Hardest hit in the company's service area was Roanoke Rapids,
N.C., where trees, broken limbs and ice cut power to about 20,000 customers,
or about four out of every five area customers. As of 12:30 p.m. Friday, only
about 8,000 remained without electricity, and most of those would have their
lights back on by late Friday.
In contrast, more than a million homes and businesses in areas
of North Carolina served by CP&L and Duke Power were left in the dark as
more than one-half inch of ice toppled trees into power lines.
Dominion released several hundred tree trimmers and power
line contractors as well as an initial wave of 50 Dominion employees to assist
the North Carolina utilities. Additional Dominion crews will be sent to the
area over the weekend.
Dominion has a diversified and integrated energy portfolio
consisting of about 24,000 megawatts of generation. Dominion also serves more
than 3.8 million franchise natural gas and electric customers in five states.
For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at www.dom.com.
# # #
CONTACTS:
Media:
Corporate MediaLine, (804) 771-6115
Visit our Storm
Center for an outage map and additional information.
