Law enforcement community affected by power outages
July 5, 2012 ·
Power outages due to last week’s storm affected thousands of West Virginians, including members of the law enforcement community. State police are coping with the situation and helping with relief efforts.
Members of the West Virginia State Police have been checking in on elderly residents throughout the last week, and Sgt. Michael Baylous says police members are also looking in on retired members of the law enforcement community.
Baylous says morale of officers is very high, despite the amount of time it’s taking to get power restored to all.
Baylous says police officers are working long hours, even without having power in their own homes.
"Even our troops that are out working on the road, on a daily basis, at one point there were 17 of 30 troopers assigned to the West Virginia turnpike, they themselves and their families didn’t have power, yet they continued to work," he said.
Baylous says state police are working with the National Guard to get food and water to areas in dire need.
Although there have been isolated incidents of activity such as looting, during this crisis, State Police Sergeant Michael Baylous says the state police aren’t seeing a general increase in criminal activity.
"What I’ve seen is just West Virginians being West Virginians, they are coming together, they are helping their neighbors out, and they are persevering through hardships, and that’s what we’ve always done," Baylous said.