Blue Ridge Electric Restoring Power Wednesday
(Noon Update)
For Immediate Release
Contact: Renee Whitener, Director of Corporate Communications, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, Phone: (828) 758-2383; Pager: 1-800-471-1323; E-mail: Renee Whitener
Lenoir, North Carolina (March 21, 2001) – Linemen crews from Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation are currently working to restore power to nearly 8,000 members in Ashe and Watauga counties who are without power today due to heavy snow causing downed power lines.
The situation has worsened from early morning, when figures were closer to 1,000 members without power. With snow beginning to melt and fall off power lines, the lines are “bouncing” up and hitting each other or knocking into branches, which are causing additional outages.
Scattered throughout both counties, the outages total over 4,300 in Ashe County while Watauga County has a little more than 3,500 members without power as of noon today.
Crews from neighboring cooperative Rutherford EMC and additional contract crews are assisting in the effort to restore power as quickly as possible.
Blue Ridge Electric reminds the public to stay clear of downed power lines, which may still be energized and dangerous or even deadly. Anyone who sees a downed power line should immediately report it to the cooperative and try to keep others away from the downed line.
To report an outage or a downed line, members may call the cooperative’s automated phone attendant called “PowerLine”, at 1-800-448-2383. Or, they may call
their local Blue Ridge Electric office in: Watauga County: 246-8894; Caldwell County: 754-9071; Ashe County:
246-7138; and Alleghany County: 372-4646, and in Wilkes: 838-4655.
Blue Ridge Electric serves over 63,000 members in northwest North Carolina.
