POINT PLEASANT — Employees of Appalachian Power, outside contractors and personnel from other AEP operating companies will continue to work on Power Restoration through the weekend.

According to the Appalachian Power Web site, 683 customers in Mason County were still without electricity as of Friday night. Altogether, APCo reported that 25,385 West Virginia customers were still waiting for power to be restored, but that was down from the more than 166,000 reported on Christmas Eve.

While restoration has gone well and the numbers have steadily declined, employees will not stop working until everyone’s power is back on in the affected areas of West Virginia, Tennessee and Virginia.

“All of our employees are very dedicated workers, and possess a certain skill set that not all of us have, especially our line personnel,” said Dana Waldo, president and chief operating officer for Appalachian Power. “They are well aware of the essential role they play in providing electricity to homes and businesses. And they rise to the occasion every time, even in this most challenging conditions and during a time when they would also rather be at home with their families.”

Many APCo employees have been working up to 16 hours a day for the past week.

Most customers still without electricity were expected to have service restored by Friday night. In areas with extensive damage (Boone, Logan and Mingo counties in West Virginia), the restoration effort will continue through the weekend. Additional crews will join the effort there as they complete restoration in less damaged areas.

If customers are still experiencing an outage when the rest of their neighborhood has been restored, they should report it again to ensure that information is properly recorded in the system. Customers can call Appalachian Power’s toll-free number (800) 982-4237. If callers receive a recorded message, they should follow the automated instructions to leave a message and not hang up.

For those who have access to a computer and the Internet, outages can be reported at www.appalachianpower.com. Reporting an outage this way only takes a few minutes and simply requires the customer’s phone number and verification of address to start the process. The Web site also has regularly updated outage information and restoration information.

Other important information:

To deter fraud or other criminal activities, Appalachian Power Security is urging residents to be conscientious regarding their personal safety. People should make sure their homes are secure if they will be temporarily living away from them, and ask for identification from power company personnel if someone requests to enter a residence. Appalachian Power employees do not need to enter homes to restore service to them.

Another security concern is the recent increase in copper wire theft. Crews are discovering that people are stealing downed wire, which is not dangerous, but illegal. Customers should contact the state police or contact the AEP security hotline number at (866) 747-5845 if they see any unauthorized person entering an electric substation or facility, climbing a utility pole, or have other suspicions of criminal activity.

Appalachian Power has almost 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states.

AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generations of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines that all other U.S. transmission systems combined.