Business As Usual for Blue Ridge Electric; Customers Experience No Disruption of Service
For Immediate Release
Contact: Renee Whitener, Director of Corporate Communications, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, (828) 758-2383 ext. 3213; Pager:1-800-471-1323; or E-mail: Renee Whitener
Lenoir, North Carolina (January 1, 2000) — Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation entered the new millennium with no Y2K conflicts and continuous electric service for its some 60,000 customers in northwest North Carolina.
Extensive Y2K preparations, drills and testing were conducted for more than one year by the cooperative’s Year 2000 Task Force to prepare for the potential computer glitch that popularly became known as the “millennium bug”. As part of achieving Y2K compliance earlier this year, Blue Ridge Electric took necessary steps to ensure that energy would continue to flow to its customers, including staffing the cooperative with 25 employees over New Year’s Eve as part of its contingency planning.
“While we expected an uneventful transition into the New Year due to our Y2K compliance and working diligently with our power suppliers and others critical to the delivery of power to our customers, we are extremely pleased that the year 2000 has arrived with no problems,” said Renee Whitener, director of corporate communications for Blue Ridge Electric.
The only disruption of service during the day was a brief outage caused by a car striking a utility pole in Boone. About 350 customers on Poplar Grove Road were affected for 2 hours while line technicians worked to restore power.
“It’s been business as usual tonight for Blue Ridge Electric, and I’m happy to say that New Year’s Eve has turned out to be just a routine day for us and our customers,” Whitener said.
Blue Ridge Electric is a not-for-profit cooperative serving 60,000 members in Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe and Alleghany counties and parts of Wilkes, Avery and Alexander counties.
