Thousands of workers have made their way into the Mountain State to restore power to residents who lost electricity during the severe storm that swept throughout the area June 29.
FirstEnergy is making use of the Elkins High School parking lot to provide those workers with a place to sleep, shower and eat.
"We are making progress and bringing in more people," FirstEnergy Director of External Affairs Charles Friddle said. "We will have power back in all of Randolph County by Sunday night."
Friddle said the southern part of the county was hit the hardest when the storm rumbled through the area with high winds causing significant damage to transmission and distribution systems.
"I've been with the company for 28 years and this is the worst storm I've seen," he said. "For us, company wide, it is worse than the 1985 flood."
According to FirstEnergy at around 12:30 a.m. today, there a 2,155 customers in Randolph County; 1,452 in Barbour County; 6,096 in Upshur; 4,050 in Lewis County; 185 in Tucker County; 3,121 in Pocahontas; 36 in Hardy County; 118 in Grant County; and 1,517 in Pendleton County still without power.
Rich Sweeney with FirstEnergy said the utility crews are working in 16-hours shifts with eight hours off.
"We have crews out 24/7," Sweeney said. "They will be out until everything is restored."
Once they have their shift in, the workers make their way to the Emergency Disaster Services set up at the high school.
The facility features showers, bunkhouses and a kitchen. Lundy's Catering of Dallas, Texas, is on hand to provide food and do laundry for the workers.
"There are several of these camps set up," Joey Gary with Lundy's Catering said.
Gary explained that the workers can eat breakfast before they head to work and they have bagged lunches ready to take out with them.
When the workers return at around 8 p.m., dinner is provided.
Each of the eight air-conditioned bunkhouses can each sleep up to 36 people.
"We can support up to 200 workers on this site," Sweeney said.
"This is a site to support the folks in the restoration process."
