Thousands remain without power across the First State after the latest winter storm.
Nearly 40 percent of the Delaware Electric Cooperative customer base is affected with about 37,000 still without power Monday afternoon.
Delmarva's outage map showed approximately 16,000 customers without power in Delaware, mostly in Kent and Sussex counties. The utility serves approximately 344 thousand Delawareans.
Zach Chizar, a Delmarva spokesperson, said the lower half of the state got more snow and has more rural areas.
"Overall, it's the amount of snow that (Kent and Sussex Counties) got, and then just the overall road conditions," Chizar said.
Late last night and early Monday morning The National Weather Service reported wind speeds up to 35 miles per hour and gusts of up to 40 miles at the Dover Airforce base.
Chizar said these conditions make it difficult for crews to reach areas with felled lines.
"We sent a bucket truck out to respond to assess damage and begin to make repairs," he said. "And then they got stuck in the snow. And then a one of our vehicles that tried to tow them out of the snow also then got stuck."
DEC's website told users Monday: “We’re facing an absolute mess this morning across Kent and Sussex Counties.”
The southern half of Delaware saw between 16- 20 inches of snow.
The Co-op’s Manager of Public Relations and Community Affairs Lauren Irby said crews started working Sunday night, but they had to pull them back because of dangerous conditions.
"It's very heavy snow that causes trees to fall onto our lines that's the main culprit: trees or branches that come in contact with our equipment and interfere and cause an outage," she said. "So that heavy snow partnered with those winds that made a huge difference and made it very, very impactful for our system."
Crews are working now, she said. The co-op has 10 additional crews coming up from Virginia to help with restoration.
Neither Delmarva or DEC can offer a clear timeline for when areas will have power restored. Both groups said they operate on a triage system to fix damage affecting the highest number of people first.
