Rocky Mount officials discuss recent outages with Appalachian Power

It was the second storm this winter to cause significant and prolonged power outages in Franklin County.

More than 20,000 county and town residents lost power — the majority of customers — for more than a week starting Feb. 11 after a winter storm. Snow mixed with heavy accumulations of ice followed by high winds a day later brought down trees and power lines throughout the county.

In Rocky Mount, residents in and around the Franklin Heights area lost power for five days following the storm. The outages impacted several businesses in the area as well as services such as the town’s water treatment plant.

Town Mayor Holland Perdue said he was joined by Town Manager Robert Wood and town Councilman Ralph Casey for the meeting last week. Casey is a former employee of Appalachian Power.

“We had a really great discussion,” Perdue said of the meeting. “It was very productive.”

Wood said Appalachian Power agreed to provide additional communication with the town in the future when it comes to updates on outages. They also agreed to designate some locations around the town as “high priority” areas where crews should focus on first when restoring power.

Those areas with essential town functions, according to Wood, include the town’s police and fire department as well as its water treatment plant and wastewater treatment facility. Those areas, in addition to already identified areas such as Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital, will be the first locations where power will be restored if a major outage were to hit the area.

“We can’t let these services go down,” Wood said.

The services currently have generators to continue operation following any major power outages, but having power restored assures that they are operating at full capacity.

Wood said generators were installed at the water treatment plant in 2021 after some concern that an outage could interrupt the town’s water supply. Those generators kept the town’s water supply flowing when power to the plant went down for nearly three days following the storm.

Without the generators, Wood said pumps would not have been able to collect and pump out water for town residents. Residents in areas of the town that had power would not have had access to water if the generators were not in place at the plant or at pump stations, he added.

Appalachian Power provided a statement to The Roanoke Times when contacted concerning the recent discussions.

“Appalachian Power is committed to providing its customers in Franklin County — and throughout our service territory — with safe, reliable electric service. We remain focused on working with Franklin County officials to ensure we can respond to power outages in the area as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible,” the statement read.

The statement continued that crews faced challenging and frigid temperatures when responding to power outages from the winter storm on Feb. 11 as well as the storm that impacted much of the northern portion of Franklin County on Jan. 5.

More than 100 utility poles were replaced or repaired following the storms. Repairs were also made to the electrical infrastructure, according to the statement.

Downed trees were the leading cause of outages following the storm. According to Appalachian Power, trees are trimmed regularly within their rights-of-way which extends 40 feet to as much as 150 feet from the roadway depending on the line and voltage.

“We regularly trim trees within our rights-of-way to ensure our lines can safely operate. However, due to these storms, several trees throughout the county fell due to heavy ice accumulation, strong wind gusts and saturated soil. Trees from outside of our rights-of-way were a leading cause of power outages throughout Winter Storms Harlow and Jett within the county,” the statement read.