As we are starting the Christmas holiday weekend, thousands are waking up to no electricity Friday morning.
This is due to a powerful arctic blast moving in the area from across the United States.
According to the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, a wind report of 25 miles per hour, with a gust of 33 miles per hour, was reported at 7:55 a.m.
A wind advisory remains in effect until 6 p.m. for Henry County and until 10 p.m. for Franklin and Patrick counties.
A wind chill advisory also continues for the entire BTW21 News coverage area until 1 p.m. Saturday.
Wind chills are forecasted to dip as low as 15 degrees below zero in parts of our area.
As of 10 a.m. Friday, Appalachian Power reported the following outages:
Franklin County: 4,033
Henry County: 1,231
Patrick County: 1,115
An estimated time of electricity from Appalachian Power is unknown at this time.
As for the City of Martinsville, a post on their Facebook page said, "We are aware and working on multiple outages throughout the city."
If you do not have power, officials encourage you to call to report the outage.