Allen Worrell/The Carroll News Carroll County Intermediate School has been opened as a shelter after Thursday's powerful winter storm left more than 6,000 people in the county without power as of 1:30 p.m. Friday. The storm dumped between 8-12 inches of snow in many parts of Carroll County on Thursday.

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With Appalachian Power still reporting approximately 6,000 people without power in Carroll County as of 1:30 p.m. Friday, a shelter has been opened at Carroll County Intermediate School.

As of 10:19 a.m., APCo was reporting 121,000 people in the state of Virginia without power as a result of the heavy, wet snow that fell across the area Thursday. With so many people without power and heat, CCIS was opened as a shelter on Friday.

“There are so many power outages still out there and so many people without heat, we wanted to be prepared in case anybody needed somewhere to get,” Carroll County Emergency Services Coordinator Mike Mock said. “But only use the shelter if you really need to. If you have other alternatives, it is better, such as staying with family members or friends. There are not really any comforts of home there at the shelter. We would encourage people to try to find ways to fend for themselves, but if they can’t certainly contact us and let us know.”

Carroll County Intermediate School is located at 1036 N. Main Street in Hillsville.

“We have Department of Social Services employees and Red Cross folks there that are coming in to help. Some of them are here working on their day off, but you do what you have to do,” Mock said. “We felt like we needed to do it since we are getting so many calls. And I also want to let people know I appreciate Joan Isom, who has just retired from the Red Cross, yet she was the one that jumped up this morning helping us get things going.”

Mock said Carroll County Emergency Services teams were busy last night dealing with a variety of issues from trees down to emergency medical calls, to vehicular accidents, and cars and trees blocking the roads. Interstate 77 was shut down last night in Carroll County and many motorists were stranded for a while, Mock said, but I-77 is back up and running today.

“Most of the accidents we were responding to were cars sliding off the road and those sorts of things,” Mocl said. “We didn’t really have anyone transported due to actual accidents.”