(NECN: Anya Huneke) - The headaches continue in Vermont, where an ongoing storm has caused ongoing power outages throughout the state. Thousands of resident are still in the dark, and the numbers are supposed to climb again, with very high winds in the forecast.
Christine Rivers\Spokesperson, CVPS "It's sort of turned into the storm that doesn't end, at this point..."
After two long days and nights on the job. Utility crews in Vermont continued to fight an uphill battle against Mother Nature Thursday afternoon.
Christine: "As we try to restore power, make repairs- the outages keep coming in."
A mid-week snowstorm deposited one to three feet of snow on the state-- including 14 inches in Burlington... 32 inches at Sugarbush resort... And 40 inches in Killington. But while ski areas celebrated, power companies tried their best to keep up with the outages.
Local
Dottie Schnure\Spokesperson, Green Mtn. Power: "We'd get customers back on, then another circuit would go out... then back on, and another circuit would go out..."
Since Tuesday night tens of thousands of Vermonters have lost power. Roughly 55,000 are CVPS customers, making this one of the largest storms in the company's history.
Christine "This storm is unique because of the duration- the time we've been taking new outages."
What's causing the major problems in this storm is not so much downed trees, but downed branches. This snow is so wet and heavy, they just snap right off.
That was the case in Royalton, where a major road was closed- as crews repaired downed lines and broken poles.
The weight of the snow was very apparent to Randy Oakes, who got more exercise than expected shoveling his driveway.
There may be no immediate rest for the weary, as shovelers and drivers recover from the first phase of the storm, another phase begins with very high winds expected which could be even more problematic for utilities.
Christine Rivers of CVPS says getting all power restored will be a matter of time, likely days which means for residents, it will have to be a matter of patience.
