ASHLAND — Thousands of area residents were left without power by Tuesday’s massive winter storm, which buried the entire region in snow and ice.

Ice-laden trees and branches broke and fell across power lines, bringing them down in some cases and causing utility poles to snap in others.

The limbs and trees also caused electrical faults. Transformers could be heard blowing out in numerous locations Tuesday night and Wednesday.

As of about 5 p.m. Wednesday, 19,712 Kentucky Power customers in Boyd, Greenup, Carter and Lawrence counties were without service, and the company was telling them it could be as long as a week before their electricity is restored.

Among those counties, Boyd had the highest number of outages, with 7,585, while Carter had the largest percentage of Kentucky Power customers in the dark, 52.4 percent.

Statewide, nearly half a million Kentuckians were in the dark in what officials said was the second-largest power outage in the history of the commonwealth.

Delinda Borden, customer and distribution manager for Kentucky Power’s Ashland District, said from her company’s standpoint, the situation was far worse than what occurred during the ice storm of February 2003, which also knocked out power to thousands.

“This has touched every county that we serve,” while the 2003 storm was more isolated, she said.

Borden said the company was calling in additional manpower to help repair the damage to the electrical grid. She said 26 crews from Michigan were en route to Kentucky. Tree-removal crews were expected to begin arriving soon as well, she said.

Borden said Kentucky Power was telling customers their estimated restoration time could be as late as midnight Wednesday.

There were 33,039 outages throughout Kentucky Power’s entire nine-county service territory, according to the electric company’s Web site. That number represened 18.8 percent of Kentucky Power customers in those counties.

Grayson RECC had about 6,800 outages throughout its service territory, which includes Carter, Elliott, Lewis, Lawrence, Rowan and Greenup counties. That’s about a third of the co-op’s customer base, CEO Carol Ann Fraley said.

She said crews from cooperatives in Alabama and Tennessee were on their way to assist Grayson RECC in its restoration efforts. Even with their assistance, though, Fraley said she anticipated getting the power turned back on to everyone would be a two- to three-day process.

“We’re just asking everyone to be patient, and, for the most part, everyone has been very gracious,” she said. “We’re here 24 hours a day, and we’re not going to leave until the situation is in hand.”

Fraley said poor road conditions throughout the service territory were hampering restoration efforts.

According to the Kentucky Public Service Commission, as of noon Wednesday, the storm had cut power to roughly 473,000 residents of the commonwealth, from Boyd County in the east to Ballard County in the west. That figure did not include rural electric cooperatives within the Tennessee Valley Authority or municipal power systems.

The PSC said the only larger power outage in the state’s history occurred just five months ago, on Sept. 14, when the remnants of Hurricane Ike swept through the state and knocked out electricity to about 600,000.

“It is just astounding that we would have two such widespread, yet very different disasters within a span of five months,” Gov. Steve Beshear said in a news release issued by the PSC. “I urge all Kentuckians to be patient and to give utility workers the cooperation they will need to complete what is going to be a very difficult and complicated restoration effort.”

The PSC also was urging residents who lost power because of the storm to check electrical connections and meters for damage.

“It is critical that damaged connections be repaired by a qualified professional and inspected before power is restored,” PSC Chairman David Armstrong said. “In past outages, fires and severe damage have been caused by damaged or improperly repaired service connections.”

Residents using alternative heating methods, such as kerosene heaters, cause by a loss of electricity also should exercise extreme caution, Ashland Fire Chief Scott Penick said.

Penick also urged people to stay away from fallen trees, which he said could contain live electrical lines, and to not try to remove any trees or limbs that have fallen across utility lines themselves.

Also, Penick said, anyone using a generator as a temporary power source should not use an extension cord to connect it to their home, because that practice can cause a fire. Generators also should be operated only outdoors in well-ventilated areas to avoid the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning, he said.