The winter storm that rolled through West Virginia turned disastrous for many coalfield residents as tens of thousands of local homes were still without power this morning.

Estimates say around 80,000 people in the coalfields are without power this morning and reports to The Logan Banner said it may be the weekend before many electricity in many areas is restored.

The storm also severely damaged much of Chief Logan State Park, including many of the lights exhibits of Christmas in the Park.

Chief Logan Superintendent Bruce Collinsworth said this morning that Christmas in the Park has been cancelled and it will be several days before the park itself is reopened to visitors.

“This is as bad as I’ve seen it,” Collinsworth said. “It destroyed a number of the Christmas in the Park exhibits and knocked down their power lines they had hanging in the air. We’re still without power in the park. It may be Christmas before power is restored here.”

Collinsworth said a crew is coming to Logan from Kanawha State Forrest to assist with the cleanup. He said the count so far has 75 large trees felled by snow in the park. Behind the Museum in the Park, there are 22 pine trees that are nearly 100-feet tall and 50-years-old each that were brought down by the storm. Crews were working yesterday afternoon and evening trying to get roads opened through the park.

“Hopefully, we can get the park open soon,” Collinsworth said. “Right now, there’s not much to see unless you want to see trees down. They started falling Friday and continued to fall Saturday. We got at least 10 inches of heavy snow and it uprooted the trees.”

Collinsworth said a few shelters were destroyed and some buildings were damaged, including the Museum, but the damage could have been much worse.

“We’re fortunate that we didn’t get a tree through one of the buildings,” Collinsworth said. “One large tree landed on the roof of the Museum. Just to clean up the debris, we’ll probably be springtime.

“But, we’ll survive. This just sets us back. I hate it for Christmas in the Park. There have been people calling about it and they re disappointed that it is closed.”

The storm dumped more than a foot of snow on many parts of southern West Virginia, causing property damage and power outages that affected residences and businesses alike.

“This was the wettest, heaviest snow I’ve seen,” Collinsworth said. “It’s going to take awhile to get the park reopened. The way it is now, people would come into the park and get stuck up and we don’t have any way to pull them out.”

Numerous people were rushed to local hospitals and shelters across the region in the wake of the storm.

At least one school bus was crashed into the side of Horsepen Mountain in Mingo County. No one at the Mingo County Board of Education office in Cinderella was answering the phones this morning and it was not known if there were students onboard when the bus tipped over.

Just a few yards up from the bus wreck were three vehicles stuck in the snow, two of which were abandoned in the road. A wrecker truck was pulling the vehicles out of the road Sunday morning.

Along Route 44 near Sarah Ann, a car was stranded in the road, leaving only one lane open to traveling motorists.

At Rameytown, an electrical transformers on a utility pole exploded and left several residents without power. Ralph Maynard lost $400 worth of food due to the power outage, he said. Maynard said he’d reported the low-hanging trees that caused the outage to Appalachian Power during the spring.

At Delbarton on Sunday, large trees were blocking lanes of U.S. Route 52. Those same trees were still blocking the road last night.

Along U.S. Route 52 at Musick, several large trees were blocking lanes, causing traffic to bottleneck in at least two areas.

Logan Emergency Ambulance Service Authority, Executive Director Roger Bryant said the inclement weather caused numerous problems around Logan County.

Bryant said fire and police departments have been extremely busy since the storm him Friday night. He said at least 13,500 residents without power. Across West Virginia, about 140,000 homes were left without power, many of which were still without power today.

"To be that widespread for so long, that was a big outage," Bryant said. "We have had some sections of the county that have been out longer than 24 hours, but the numbers this time were astounding. There are still places all over the county in spots that are without power.

"It's certainly been a challenge, but its improved over past few days," Bryant added. “The challenge has been to keep people warm and fed."

Bryant said one major problem LEASA faced was the large number of people who are dependent upon home oxygen setups.

"It really surprised me," Bryant said. "What we did basically, was try to get some home oxygen units into the shelters so they would have it there. You just can't get enough tanks to supply that demand. It was also a particular problem for the hospital because they had folks ready to discharge because they needed emergency beds but the people leaving had no power in their homes and some of them needed oxygen, too. So they sent them to our shelters.

“That was probably our biggest challenge that we faced, but we worked it out with help from the home medical companies in the county. We even had people from Boone and Mingo counties showing up for help at our shelters."

LEASA had shelters at Logan Middle School, Chapmanville Town Hall and at the Bruce McDonald Methodist Church in Man. However, when the steps at that facility became too icy for people with mobility problems, the shelter was moved to the Nazarene Church in Man.

The Man and Chapmanville shelters were still in operation on Monday.

Bryant said situations like this weekend's storm are perfect examples of why everyone needs a home emergency plan.

"A winter storm like this is one thing you want to plan for. You should at least be able to care for yourself for 48 hours and a week would be better,” Bryant said. “We will do what we can, but that is no substitute for being able to take care of yourself. But the people around here do a pretty good job of taking care of themselves in emergencies and it's a good thing they can. Our shelters are not that big and, luckily for us, most people went to neighbors or relatives who had power."

Appalachian Power issued a press release early this morning concerning reporting power outages.

The release said power restoration is underway for 130,000 customers who are without power today in Virginia, Tennessee and West Virginia.

AEP said it has called in more than 1,300 contractors from 13 states to assist with power restoration.

“While many people will have power restored today and tomorrow, some areas will not be restored until the end of the week,” the press release said. “Crews are using every resource available, but blocked and snow-covered roads and the large number of outages continue to make restoration efforts extremely challenging. Crews have reported finding hundreds of broken power poles and miles of downed power lines in areas that they have been able to access so far. They were able to restore power to about 40,00 customers on Sunday.”

AEP said if power is out, customers should call 1-800-982-4237 and, when customers received a recorded message, follow the automated instructions to leave a message and not hang up.

Outages can also be reported by going to www.appalachianpower.com.

The release said people should not approach power company crews with questions about outages because it can be potentially dangerous for everyone.

“Making electrical repairs in these circumstances is very dangerous work and requires the complete concentration of our employees,” Phil Wright, Appalachian Power vice president-distribution, said in the press release. “It is imperative that distractions be kept to a minimum, so we are urging our customers to use the phone and internet to report and receive information.”

Appalachian Power also said in the press release that people who are affected by the power outage, including those who have to leave their homes, should turn off all lights and appliances, including heating systems. Following this advice will help prevent circuit overload situations as power is restored to homes, the press release said.

“One light can be left on, so customers will know when power is restored,” the release said.

AEP has nearly 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee.