FRANKFORT, KY – A severe summer storm packing high winds and extensive lightning crossed Kentucky Power’s Eastern Kentucky service area Thursday evening causing more than 13,000 customers to lose power. The storm caused damage ranging from downed power lines to broken utility poles to downed trees and tree limbs across power lines.
 
Kentucky Power crews were assessing damage and working to return circuits to customers as safely and quickly as possible, although they cautioned it may be as late as Saturday before all customers are returned to service.
 
Company officials also cautioned residents of Eastern Kentucky to never approach downed power lines. No mater how harmless a downed wire may appear it should be considered energized and dangerous. Report all downed power lines to Kentucky Power at (800) 572-1113 or notify local emergency or law enforcement officials immediately. Never approach or touch anything that comes in contact with a downed power line.
 
As of 9 p.m. Thursday, the following outage numbers were estimated by the company. Company officials explained these numbers could rise and fall throughout the overnight hours as additional storms occur, outage situations are identified and customers restored to service.
Service Area              Number of Customers
Cannonsburg                  9,358
Hazard                           1,076
Paintsville                          178
Pikeville                            156
South Williamson           3,038
Total                            13,806
 
Customers and media representatives can track the number of outages in their area by going to www.kentuckypower.com and clicking on "storm & outage center" then "see current outages." The site provides a customer outage count by county.
 
Kentucky Power is an operating unit of American Electric Power and provides electricity to approximately 175,000 customers in all or parts of 20 Eastern Kentucky counties.
 
American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning more than 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. AEP’s transmission system directly or indirectly serves about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern Interconnection, the interconnected transmission system that covers 38 eastern and central U.S. states and eastern Canada, and approximately 11 percent of the electricity demand in ERCOT, the transmission system that covers much of Texas. AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.

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