Knoxville (WVLT) - Crews will continue to work around the clock to restore power to thousands of East Tennesseans still without it.

KUB says some customers will remain without power for the night and should prepare for cooler temperatures.

Right now, there are still about 3,000 customers without power in Knox County.

Four hundred in Union County, 148 in Sevier County, 219 in Grainger County and 61 in Jefferson County.

People woke up to East Tennessee This Morning and reports of high winds exceeding 40 miles per hour and they continued to pick up throughout the day.

"Throughout this morning the high winds have caused new outages so that number has been jumping around quite a bit," says Jennifer Fern, from KUB.

At the peak, more than 40,000 customers were without power. At one point, that included 15 schools, some lost power before the school bell even rang, but students still went to class.

"What we don't wanna do is make a knee jerk reaction over a 45 minute problem and call off school and then have power come back in 10 minutes," says Knox County Schools spokesman Russ Oakes.

Inskip Elementary lost power after students were in school because of the wind, kids in portable classrooms were moved to the cafeteria.

"When it first happened, they just wanted to know what was going on and why our routine was being changed a little bit, but other than that the kids have been wonderful," says Elisa Luna, Inskip Elementary Principal.

High winds also caused downed power lines, trees and branches.

David McMahan woke to what he says sounded like a clap of thunder. "There's a tree in the front yard! I said, there's not one in our front yard, she said, no, it's on the car next door!"

He says things could have been a lot worse. "Grateful no one got hurt, and grateful it didn't hit the house or go in the road."

The good news, no injuries have been reported because of the weather, but KUB wants to remind people to be safe.

"Don't go near any down power lines, keep kids away from down power lines and if you see a downed line, give us a call," says Fern.

If you see a downed power line, you can reach KUB at 524-2911, or you can call your local utility company.

Winds are still strong across East Tennessee, so once again, it's very important to stay clear of downed lines if you see them.