In comparison, a Dec. 18, 2009, snowstorm cost the company $31.6 million in West Virginia. Appalachian Power asked the state Public Service Commission to recover $22.8 million of that cost and was granted $18 million. The average residential customer is being charged about 14 cents a month over eight years to pay that $18 million, Matheney said.

Appalachian Power serves about 500,000 customers across southern West Virginia and a like number in Virginia. Its Wheeling Power subsidiary serves about 40,000 customers in Ohio and Marshall counties.

Nick Akins, president and chief executive officer of American Electric Power, the corporate parent of Appalachian Power, said the most recent storm cost the company and its subsidiaries and an overall estimated $230 million.

AEP provides electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states.

"The storm was expensive," Akins said Friday during a conference call with analysts to announce the company's second-quarter 2012 financial results.

He said much of the cost of the latest storm "will be deferred for future recovery," meaning the company will seek to recover most of the costs in requests it will file with state regulators.

Brian Tierney, AEP's executive vice president and chief financial officer, provided details.

Tierney said that of the $230 million total, "We believe approximately $70 million will be classified as 'capital (expense),' and will be recovered in various future rate proceedings. Of the remaining $160 million of O&M (operations and maintenance expense), we believe we will ultimately be able to defer for future recovery up to $130 million. We recognized $4 million in expenses related to this series of storms in the second quarter, leaving an estimated expense for the third quarter of about $26 million."

Akins said he had never heard of a 'super derecho' until the June 29 storm hit. "During the day it was 'a 10 percent chance of thunderstorms,' " he said. "Well, that was a pretty damaging 10 percent."

The storm affected six states, from Indiana to Virginia, where AEP's subsidiaries provide electricity. At the peak of the storm the company had more than 1.4 million customers in five states without power, "an unprecedented outage number for AEP," Akins said.

In addition, 300,000 customers were affected by storms that followed, he said.

Akins said AEP marshaled crews from all over the United States and from Canada to support the restoration efforts.

"I'm very proud of our response," he said. "Our management team, including myself, visited with crews working throughout our various states to make absolutely sure that the necessary resources were dedicated for restoring power to our customers.

"Working for almost two weeks, 16-hour-days and almost 100 degree heat was an extreme challenge that I'm confident that we performed and executed well from an operational and a safety perspective."

Akins said the costs and lost revenues associated with the June 29 storm will be reflected primarily in third-quarter results.

AEP on Friday reported second-quarter 2012 earnings of $362 million or 75 cents a share.

In comparison, the company earned $352 million or 73 cents a share during the same period a year ago.

As for the most recent quarter, "We had solid financial performance," Akins said, "driven by warmer than normal weather and our continued disciplined approach to controlling costs. The economy in our service territories has shown some signs of improvement, with growth in our western states outpacing that in our eastern states."

"Our earnings performance was strong for the first half of the year, but we face challenges for the remainder of the year, including customer switching in Ohio," he said, referring to the decision by Ohio's utility regulator to go full-bore into competition.

Utilities have been switching from coal to lower-cost natural gas whenever possible.

In a slide show prepared for analysts, AEP noted that its natural gas-fired power plant in Dresden, Ohio, came online in February. Overall power generation using natural gas has increased over 80 percent, the company said.

AEP said the ability for additional coal-to-gas switching in its fleet of power generating plants in the eastern United States is minimal.

American Electric Power and its West Virginia subsidiaries have 2,546 employees in the state.

Contact writer George Hohmann at busin...@dailymail.com or 304-348-4836.