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 extensive trouble during the storm, Dominion sent additional crews and bucket trucks to the county to deal with the outages.

Newsome said outages fluctuated throughout the storm, largely due to the fact that Dominion crews were temporarily rerouting circuits so customers could retain power during the height of the overnight storm. Once the wind died down, workers began permanent repairs, she said, in some cases disconnecting power lines that had been temporarily rerouted and causing customers to lose power once again.

“Sometimes fluctuations are the weather, sometimes it’s restoration,” she said.

Repairs that only involve replacing or reconnecting a wire can be made fairly quickly, said Newsome, while broken poles require larger crews and more time.

“Part of the damage assessment is to determine how many people are needed to do the repairs,” she said.

Newsome said Dominion expected to have all power restored by 11 p.m. Wednesday.