Storms knock out power for 2,572 Goochland customers

Power went out for 2,572 Goochland County Dominion Energy customers as violent storms pushed through Central Virginia Sunday evening, adding the county to a regional outage that briefly left nearly 79,000 Virginians without electricity. By 8:30 p.m., about 49,300 outages were being tracked in Central Virginia, and Goochland remained behind larger-hit localities including Henrico County, Hanover County, New Kent County and Richmond.

The storm threat was not a passing sprinkle. The National Weather Service office in Wakefield had a Severe Thunderstorm Watch in effect through 11 p.m. for parts of south-central, central and east-central Virginia, and its forecast discussion said the most dangerous window ran roughly from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Forecasters also carried a Slight Risk for severe thunderstorms across the area, while storms were capable of producing damaging wind gusts above 58 mph, with some gusts reaching 70 mph and hail possible in isolated cells.

That kind of weather can turn a county-wide outage into a household problem fast. Families relying on refrigerators, freezers or powered medical equipment had reason to act quickly, and Dominion’s Virginia outage guidance says customers should report outages, check status through its outage system and stay at least 30 feet away from downed wires and damaged equipment. Generator users are also told to follow manufacturer safety guidance, a reminder that a storm outage can be dangerous even after the lights go out.

The evening’s numbers showed how large the disruption was, but also how quickly crews began making headway. Dominion’s outage map showed 51,979 customers still without power statewide by 9:31 p.m., down from the earlier peak reported in Central Virginia, signaling that some service had already been restored as crews moved through the region. In Goochland, the scale of the outage underscored how one storm system can knock out traffic signals, interrupt business activity and leave neighborhoods in the dark at the same time.

County officials have repeatedly leaned on emergency planning during major storm damage, activating the Emergency Operations Center and working with public and private partners to restore services. Sunday’s outage again put that response posture to the test, and it raised the same question for Goochland residents after another severe-weather event: whether restoration times and grid resilience are improving quickly enough when storms hit across the region at once.