Submitted photo | Vivian Livingood Crews worked throughout Thursday to restore electricity to almost 1,000 customers after a tree brought down a power line Wednesday evening.

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Julia Roberts

Staff Writer

GILBERT — Recent storms brought down a tree near the Mountain Breeze Motel, which led to a major power outage in the Gilbert area Thursday.

Almost 1,000 customers were initially affected by the outage, Phil Moye, spokesperson for Appalachian Power told the Daily News. A large tree came down on US 52 late Wednesday night, breaking three poles and several crossties that support powerlines, Moye said.

“The area with the broken poles was not accessible to our trucks,” Moye said. “So, instead of just replacing the poles in same location, we relocated them to a place we had access to by our trucks.”

Moye said relocation of the poles made the restoration of power take longer than usual, but that most customers power had been restored by Thursday afternoon. The company expected power should be restored to all customers sometime Thursday night.

Gilbert Mayor Vivian Livingood said when she surveyed the damage, she admired the work that was being done by Appalachian Power crews, as well as Frontier Communications and Asplundh.

“I received a lot of calls, people asking why the power wasn’t coming back on sooner,” Livingood said. “But I have been out where those crews are, and they are working really hard. People think they are dragging their feet, but they are not, they are doing all they can.”