CHARLESTON, W.Va., August 27, 2012 - Approximately 200 Appalachian Power employees and contract workers are traveling toward Louisiana in anticipation that they will be needed to help restore power in the wake of Hurricane Isaac, expected to make landfall mid-week. The workers left for Florida this past weekend, but were redirected as the storm's track moved west. The group is made up of line mechanics and tree crews from across the company's Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia territory.
"Utilities help their neighbors in situations like this," said Phil Wright, Appalachian Power's vice president of distribution operations. "After the Derecho, we had crews from 22 states here to assist us. Now it's our turn to assist customers in other states."
Overall, AEP will send about 650 workers from its 11-state territory. Although the storm's path is not yet certain, utilities are staging crews in the most likely areas of impact, according to standard practice.
Appalachian Power has 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.