Virginia Works To Pick Up Pieces After Hurricane Irene

The sound of chain saws and generators have been piercing the air in many parts of Virginia as residents dig out from under the debris left by Hurricane Irene.

Dominion Virginia Power says initial outages affecting more than 1.2 million customers represented the second-largest outage ever, behind Hurricane Isabel.

Roughly 6,000 personnel from eight states have been working to restore power.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has been touring affected areas including Tidewater, in the southeastern part of the state. He is cautioning Virginians to be careful even though the hurricane is gone.

"One of the lessons of Isabel was that half of the people who died related to that storm died after the storm had passed in doing recovery and clean-up operations, from either hitting standing water on roads, touching live wires, having heart attacks from overexertion, or related activities," McDonnell says. "So it is still a time to be vigilant."

He says officials are now assessing damage statewide to determine Virginia’s eligibility for state and federal aid.