Ten years ago, most of us didn't know the word "derecho" existed. On June 29, 2012, that word was forever etched into the minds of many across the Tri-State.

It was a Friday, the end of a work week and the start of a major heat wave. The region would see record-breaking temperatures ahead of an alarming line of storms.

Forecasters at the National Weather Service were following this line of storms closely throughout the day.

"It became apparent through the day that the line of storms was going to move further south than anticipated and we updated our forecast accordingly and started to message the threat for damaging straight-line winds over a fairly large area," Blacksburg, Virginia National Weather Service Warning Coordinator Phil Hysell recalled.

By mid-evening, the storm reached the Tri-State with straight-line wind gusts between 60 to 80 mph. These record-breaking wind gusts caused widespread damage and historic power outages.

The storm would travel roughly 700 miles across 10 states in just 12 hours.

A widespread path of destruction took the lives of 13 people, according to the National Weather Service. Meteorologists later classified the storm as a derecho.

“There is a serial derecho and a progressive derecho," Hysell explained. "The serial derechos are much easier to predict because they follow along designated fronts. They are easily trackable and easily predictable. What we had on June 29, 2012 was what we call a progressive derecho. It moves away from the initiation point. Those are much more difficult to predict.”

After the storm passed, the historic power outages continued with more than 70% of West Virginians left in the dark. Appalachian Power served 585,000 customers in West Virginia at the time and more than 350,000 of those customers were without power following the derecho.

Spokesperson for Appalachian Power Phil Moye said the storm was the "largest ever faced at Appalachian Power."

These power outages came during the continuation of a heat wave, leaving many in the region trying to find ways to cool off.

Hotels were sold out for weeks, cooling stations were overwhelmed and hardware stores were running low on generators. Those that had generators struggled to find fuel as the demand for gas drastically rose following the storms.

According to the National Weather Service, heat claimed 34 lives in areas without power across several states.

In West Virginia, it took a little more than two weeks for power to be restored, with 3,500 power crews from across the nation behind restoration efforts.

“We lost 176 miles of power line. That’s how much we had to restring and put back up," Moye reported. "We had transmission substations and distribution lines down. We ended up replacing 1,200 poles from that storm."

Since 2012, Appalachian Power has eliminated several decades of old equipment and replaced thousands of poles, towers and power lines. Moye believes new infrastructure will be more reliable and last for several decades.

AEP has added a new program called "Cycle-Based Vegetation Management" which requires trees around circuits to be trimmed each year. The program was designed to make circuits easier to access, allowing crews to provide quicker restoration times for customers during power outages.

Over the last 10 years, officials at the National Weather Service have made mitigations to their warning system to become more efficient in weather emergencies.

"We have now made it possible to where these rare derecho events that produce widespread 80 mph wind gusts or higher will now trigger wireless emergency alerts on your cell phone and that was not available in the 2012," Hysell said.

In Kanawha County, an emergency management team directed by C.W. Sigman have made improvements since the derecho. Sigman believes more generators will provide additional shelters for people to use during extensive power outages.

“We already had generators. We have just expanded on that," Sigman reported. "We’ve expanded on some of the agencies that have put in switch gear. That way we can bring our generator in and plug it in if we have to. We don’t have to leave one there all the time."

Efforts to combat extreme weather situations continue a decade after the derecho. Sigman said the team plans to install generators at fire stations in South Charleston.