Dominion Restores Power To More Than 75 Percent Of Customers Affected By Ernesto

-Customers: Call 1-888-667-3000 To Check Status, Report Outages
-Stay Away From Downed Power Lines

September 2, 2006

RICHMOND, Va. – Dominion has restored power to more than 75 percent of its customers in Virginia and North Carolina whose electric service was interrupted because of Tropical Storm Ernesto, and the company continues to expect that restoration for most customers will be completed by Sunday night.

In less than 24 hours since Ernesto exited Dominion’s electric service area, power has been restored to nearly 480,000 homes and businesses. As of 5 p.m. Saturday, another 134,500 homes and business were still without power as a result of Ernesto’s torrential rains and winds that reached near-hurricane force in some locations.

A team of more than 3,000 company employees, contractors and crews from other utilities is continuing to restore service to all customers as quickly and safely as possible. Some customers may not have their power restored by Sunday night because of circumstances such as floodwaters that have not yet receded, severe damage or remote location.

Customers without electricity can call the Dominion Customer Service Center at toll free 1-888-667-3000 to learn when service will be restored or to report an outage. Additional information about restoration efforts and where crews are working is available at the Dominion Web site, www.dom.com.

Customers also are reminded to stay clear of downed power lines and report them by calling the Dominion Customer Service Center.

Dominion employees have developed a restoration strategy that will allow crews to maximize repair efforts throughout the weekend. In general, crews repair substations and major circuits first and then move to the smaller circuits in neighborhoods.

Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers of energy, with an energy portfolio of about 28,000 megawatts of generation, about 6.3 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas reserves and 7,800 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline. Dominion also operates one of the nation's largest underground natural gas storage systems with more than 950 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 10 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at www.dom.com.

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