Power restoration efforts continue in south central and southeast Kentucky, where ice accumulations interrupted service for thousands.
By late Monday, utility crews had restored power to about half the 60,000 mostly electric cooperative customers who lost power over the weekend.
South Kentucky RECC and Tri-County EMC customers remained the most affected, with the most outages in Pulaski, Allen and Monroe counties.
Joe Arnold, a spokesman for Kentucky Electric Cooperatives, said weather conditions made it difficult for repair crews to access the damage.
"Some of that area in southern Kentucky, not only got a lot of snow and freezing rain, they actually got rain rain, and the ground is saturated, believe it or not, and that has resulted in, in some areas, not being able to use bucket trucks," he said.
Arnold said the biggest job was replacing hundreds of broken poles.
"If you have a broken pole, that broken pole can't be repaired, it has to be completely removed. You're talking about a construction project to dig a new hole in the frozen ground to set a new pole, restring all that equipment, put all the things back on it," he said.
Arnold said hundreds of mutual aid personnel had come from around Kentucky and other states to assist in the effort.
Eastern grid operator PJM revised upward its peak electricity demand forecast for Tuesday.
PJM, which includes part or all of 12 states and the District of Columbia, and most of eastern and northern Kentucky, expects load to peak at 147,000 megawatts, exceeding its previous winter record demand a year ago.
It also forecast that high power consumption will persist Wednesday and Thursday, and into the weekend.
