Kentuckians woke up Monday under a sheet of snow and ice amid ongoing Winter Storm Blair.
Over 80,000 Kentuckians lacked power as of Monday morning and a state of emergency has remained in effect since the weekend.
Governor Andy Beshear said in a Monday morning news conference that no deaths have been reported due to the storm, but road crews continue to address power outages across the state.
“I would suggest that if you’re in one of those counties (that were hit hard), be following the news coming from your utilities, but also know where you can go to stay warm,” Beshear said.
Henderson County reported roughly 7,000 households without power at 10 a.m., the highest number of outages within the state. Many of those customers are served by provider Kenergy Corp.
Leslie Barr, communications and public relations specialist at Kenergy Corp, told WKU Public Radio that the company was expecting a larger impact than what eventually hit. She added road crews have reported most repairs have been relatively easy to fix.
“The majority of problems we’re having are downed power lines and downed trees,” Barr said. “The ice and snow on the trees, that's usually the biggest issue, those will fall on power lines and cause outages, or actually down power lines, which of course causes outages.”
Barr said outages caused by downed utility poles are more difficult to fix, but few have been reported as a result of Blair.
Kenergy’s repairs will be especially important as the National Weather Service is expecting temperature lows in the single digits for parts of the state during the next several nights.
“Everything’s kind of refreezing, that does make it tough to give any estimated times of restoration,” Barr said. “We are hoping today and tomorrow to hit a lot of those bigger outages, but we’ll work around the clock until we get every member restored.”
Union, Crittendon, Christian, Muhlenberg, Todd and Logan counties each experienced roughly 1,000 outages. Portions of far eastern Kentucky, including Morgan, Menifee, Owsley, Johnson and Martin, saw thousands of customers without power.
The National Weather Service’s winter storm warning will remain in effect until at least Monday afternoon as snow and freezing rain continue across the region.
Heavy snowfall left northern and middle portions of Kentucky debilitated, with nearly eight inches of snow recorded in Louisville yesterday afternoon, according to the NWS. The accumulation destroyed a previous record of three inches set that day in 1910.
A social media post from NWS Louisville said that freezing temperatures will continue throughout this week, with some areas experiencing sub-zero readings around Wednesday and Thursday.
Gov. Beshear said during his news conference that temperatures in the coming days will be so cold that road salt will be rendered ineffective and advised Kentuckians to refrain from traveling.
A social media post from Kentucky State Police reported a 70% increase in calls compared to a typical Sunday and Monday, with dispatch answering over 1,450 calls amid the storm. Troopers have assisted over 300 motorists since the storm began, according to the post.
KSP has advised all Kentuckians to stay off roadways unless necessary, especially after a trooper’s cruiser was struck in Hart County along Interstate 65 amid an emergency stop.
