Snow Cuts Power, Closes Schools in East

An unexpectedly heavy snowfall of up to 26 inches hit parts of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania on Monday, cutting electrical service to nearly 50,000 customers, closing schools and snarling morning traffic.

“Snow was expected but the amount of snow that fell was unexpected,” said National Weather Service forecaster Jerry Orchanian in Charleston, W.Va.

“What they said on TV was one to three inches, but then they started hollering three-to-five and then four-to-eight,” said Floyd Winkler, city garage dispatcher in Huntington, W.Va., an Ohio River city where motorists skidded through seven inches of snow.

“We’ve had accidents all over the place,” said Pennsylvania state Trooper Richard Marshall in Greensburg. Two traffic deaths were reported in the state.

Coopers Rock State Forest in northern West Virginia had 26 inches of snow, the weather service said.

Fourteen inches covered the ground at Chalk Hill, Pa., and 12 inches fell at Johnstown, Pa.

Southeastern Ohio got up to seven inches of snow, the weather service said, and snow made roads slippery as far south as the mountains of North Carolina.

Electricity Disrupted

An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 customers of Greensburg-based West Penn Power Co. in southwestern Pennsylvania were without electricity Monday morning, utility spokesman Bob Van Atta said.

Several thousand customers of Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Light Co. also lost power, spokesman Ken Scherer said.

Appalachian Power Co. said 14,600 customers in southern West Virginia were without power at the peak of the storm, and Monongahela Power Co. said about 4,000 northern West Virginia residents were hit by outages.

Power was being restored Monday afternoon, officials said.

In southeastern Ohio, B. J. Smith, a spokeswoman for Ohio Power Co., said that about 11,000 customers lost electrical service, and Fred Deskins of the Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric Co. said about 3,000 of that utility’s customers were without power.

Public schools closed in more than 20 West Virginia counties, and acting West Virginia University President Diane Reinhard closed that school in hilly Morgantown, which got about a foot of snow.

The university’s hospital and Monongalia General Hospital sent four-wheel-drive vehicles to pick up employees unable to get to work because of the snow.