September 18, 2003
5:30 p.m.

RICHMOND, Va. - Hurricane Isabel covered Virginia with a drenching rain and winds of up to 100 mph Thursday afternoon, uprooting trees from already sodden ground, bringing down limbs and causing outages for more than 1 million Dominion Virginia Power customers.

As of 5:30 p.m., nearly half of Dominion's 2.2 million electric customers were without power, from northeastern North Carolina through Tidewater and up into Central and Northern Virginia. The number of customers affected by Isabel is expected to eclipse the 1.1 million customers affected by Hurricane Fran in 1996.

Dominion's assembled workforce of 7,000, including line crews, line crews from other utilities, contractors and tree-trimmers, was stationed throughout the company's service area, ready to respond once the storm has passed. However, customers should expect outages to last multiple days.

As of 5:30 p.m., Hurricane Isabel had the greatest effect in Tidewater, where more than 91 percent of the company's 646,000 customers were without power. In Elizabeth City, N.C., Isabel had turned the lights out on almost all of the area's 18,000 customers.

Outages are expected to continue occurring and increase in number as Isabel's stronger winds move into Central and Northern Virginia. Hurricane Isabel extended almost across the entire state, from Virginia Beach to Wytheville, Emporia to Alexandria.

Dominion reminds its customers to call toll free 1-888-667-3000 and use the voice response unit to report outages or downed lines. Using the system's voice response unit is the quickest way to report an outage or downed power lines. The company's outage reporting system can handle 100,000 calls an hour.

Dominion urges its customers to stay away from downed power lines. Consider downed power lines energized and dangerous. To report a downed line, call Dominion at 1-888-667-3000.

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