MONTGOMERY CO., Va. – In almost every neighborhood throughout Montgomery County, there is a tree down and people without power.
“With this amount of ice, it is also extremely heavy, and has the potential to bring down entire trees, just like this one,” said Chris Ramsey, Christiansburg chief of police. “We really haven’t seen the magnitude of an event like this since the derecho in 2011.”
After two consecutive days of constant winter weather and ice accumulation, there are thousands of people across the county without power.
“There are literally trees and powerlines, utility lines down everywhere,” Ramsey said. “It is very widespread and it’s going to take a while to recover.”
Damage can be seen across the county.
“It’s been pretty hard, the power went down yesterday before noon,” said Knic Umstead, a Christiansburg resident. “We’re thinking about, if we need to, putting some rocks, putting them on the grill and heating them up.”
Longtime Christiansburg resident Cindy Barden said she is one of the lucky few still with power, but she still has damage at her home from the ice.
“I’ve never seen this much ice,” Barden said. “This one came down during the day yesterday and then this one came down sometime during the night. I got up and saw the wires down so we called AEP.”
Good Samaritans like Blacksburg resident Ernest Akers are out helping their neighbors. Though he’s clearing debris for a neighbor, he said he hasn’t had power since Wednesday.
“Just helping the neighbor, that’s it,” Akers said. “It was pretty heavy last night. The trees had a lot of ice on them.”
People we spoke with tell us they’ve been told by AEP their power should be restored on Feb. 14.