Update: The number of Appalachian Power crews reduced outages to under 25,000 by Friday morning, according to the company's website.
The utility has not yet estimated when all service will be restored.
Original story from Thursday:
Freezing rain and sleet Thursday morning helped knock out power to more than 35,000 Appalachian Power customers in Southwest Virginia.
The utility says Floyd, Grayson and Patrick counties are especially hard hit. About 85 percent of Appalachian's customers in Floyd County were without power Thursday afternoon, according to the company's online reporting site.
An Appalachian Power spokesperson said crews had been prepositioned Wednesday. Additional crews are coming in from areas in Tennessee and West Virginia that were not as severely affected.
Some outages were likely to be restored by Thursday evening, according to the company's website. But many more were still being assessed and more outages were occuring. A company spokesperson could not yet provide an estimate of when all customers would be restored.