A winter storm that wreaked havoc across the East Coast Tuesday night caused 96,000 Virginia customers to lose power, with 9,642 of those in the five counties comprising the Middle Peninsula.

Winds in Gloucester and Mathews ranged from 50-60 mph at their peak, said meteorologist Larry Brown of the National Weather Service at Wakefield, with Gloucester experiencing an average of 2 inches of rain and Mathews an average of 1.5-2 inches.

High winds caused downed power lines, leading to widespread power outages in both Gloucester and Mathews, said Cherise M. Newsome, senior communications specialist for media relations at Dominion Energy in Virginia. As of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, 562 Gloucester customers and 165 Mathews customers were still without power. The Gloucester outages were spread across the county, while the Mathews outages were concentrated mostly in Cobbs Creek and Susan, according to Virginia Dominion Power’s outage map.

Newsome said that, with Gloucester experiencing ex...