Duke Energy is in the final stages of restoring power to communities in the area following Saturday’s major ice storm.

Tuesday night, the outage map showed a drastic drop in the number of people without power, but that could all change again by the end of the week.

More winter weather is expected to hit overnight Wednesday and crews are preparing for round two.

“It’s time to gear up, reload and afraid we may be at it again in a few days,” said Jeff Brooks, a Duke Energy spokesperson.

A battle between power crews and Mother Nature is expected to unfold in the next few days.

“The storm can actually continue to knock out power. We did see three days of rain with this storm, and it took its toll on our crews and the system,” Brooks said.

Freezing rain and ice over the weekend kept linemen busy for several days. Thousands had their power cut off when trees and branches took down utility poles and power lines.

Brooks says they have their work cut out for them following a stretch of low temperatures and little sunshine.

“As that storm comes in there won’t have been a lot of drying out, so that is a concern as you think about the soft ground, the challenges of getting to the outages that we faced. As more of that weather comes in it could just build on to that,” Brooks said.

Crews are already coming off a long week of a lot of hard work, but they have to be ready to respond, no matter what conditions they face.

“They train for this, they live for this, but even for the veteran this is hard work,” Brooks said.

Supplies are stacked and after a night’s rest, crews will be back in action.

“They are used to working in a lot of extreme conditions and when the power goes out you can’t not work just because it’s uncomfortable, you have to get out there and do it,” Brooks said.

There are over 300 line workers based in the Triad. Duke Energy will bring in more crews as necessary, but they are not going to move local crews to other regions unless they are sure an area won’t be impacted by the storm.