Member Appreciates Reliability and Personal Care: The Cooperative Difference
For Immediate Release
Contact: Renee Whitener, Director of Public Relations, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, (828) 758-2383 ext. 3213; Pager: 1-800-471-1323; or E-mail: Renee Whitener
West Jefferson, North Carolina (February 17, 2006) – “Last night was the worst night I can ever remember for high winds. Our radio station recorded 70 mph winds. I live in a far end of the county, and our electricity went off around 11:30. As the winds came across the tin roof on our farmhouse, I shuddered. I was too afraid to sleep, so I felt my way downstairs and cuddled in a throw, and I began to think of the lineman. I began to pray for them.”
The quote above was the beginning of a letter received by Doug Johnson, chief executive officer of Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, written by Donna Pollard, a long-time Blue Ridge member from Crumpler, N.C.
Her letter continued to praise the dedication and courtesy of the linemen as she described that night. She remembered them working by headlights for more than two hours in the wind and rain, cutting away fallen limbs with chainsaws, dragging the line by hand over the wooded hills, never breaking until power was restored to her neighborhood.
According to Jack Goodman, Blue Ridge’s operations manager in Ashe County, this is just one example of the dedication and pride workers feel about their job and taking care of members.
At Blue Ridge Electric, membership matters. In a cooperative, it’s the members the cooperative serves who are all owners of the business. And according Goodman, all Blue Ridge employees, especially the linemen, take the value of membership seriously. The dedication and courtesy of Blue Ridge linemen were showcased during that late January windstorm when five poles were broken and power was lost throughout Ashe County, including at Pollard’s home.
Pollard said she was amazed by the linemen’s dedication and overwhelmed at the courtesy they showed their members.
“As they backed down my neighbor’s driveway they killed their headlights which had been aimed towards the woods they had come out of,” Pollard said. “They didn’t want the bright headlights to wake anyone who may be sleeping.”
“Our linemen live in the community they serve,” added Robert Kent, Blue Ridge’s director of operations. “We feel more loyalty for our members than other utility providers do. They are our neighbors and friends and we try to treat them that way.”
According to Goodman and Kent, linemen are a big part of Blue Ridge’s reliable service, but technology, prevention and planning, and cooperation are also aspects of Blue Ridge’s formula for success.
Technologically, Blue Ridge’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system (SCADA) has been a key factor in reliable service. SCADA, monitored 24 hours a day, is a full-scale service that allows Blue Ridge employees to find trouble spots before they cause outages, increases efficiency and reduces the amount of time members go without power.
“All of our substation breakers can be opened or closed from the SCADA office, which allows us to get our job done faster and keeps our men in the field safer,” said Goodman. “Now, even if we are 10 or 15 miles away from the station, once our linemen have repaired the damage they can just call in and the breaker is closed, restoring power quicker.”
“Fault locaters, located in intervals along the lines, have also made us more reliable,” said Kent. “They allow us to sectionalize the lines, keeping the outage in a smaller area and making the problem easier to find and our response time quicker.”
Each year Blue Ridge adds more fault locaters further reducing the area an outage may affect. Fault locaters are easily read by linemen and show which line sections still have power and which need repairs.
Kent also attributes much of Blue Ridge’s success to prevention. “In addition to fault locaters, maintaining the right-of-ways more frequently has been a key aspect in our prevention process. Right-of-ways are simply the avenues that power lines run through and keeping these avenues maintained helps us perform our job faster and more efficiently. In an effort to do this we have moved from a 12 1/2-year maintenance cycle to a six-year cycle.”
“We have also started to spray a herbicide on individual plant shoots, instead of only cutting back brush,” said Goodman. “This helps grass and ground covers come in. It’s good for the wild life and good for us. We can get to the lines easier and get our jobs done faster.”
Letters are sent out to each member before any cutting or spraying takes place. “If a member has concerns we try to explain our reasons and how they will benefit them, but in the end it’s what the member wants,” said Goodman.
“From our board to our linemen, maintaining member service and satisfaction is our number one priority,” Kent said.
Donna Pollard recognized this as she watched her power be restored. “I could tell in their (the linemen’s) faces that it wasn’t a job to them; it was a responsibility.”
Goodman reminds members that it is important to report all outages. “All calls are grouped by area, and outages are prioritized by the number of members affected.” Goodman also warned members not to go near downed power lines as they are dangerous and can cause injury and sometimes death. To report a power outage or downed lines members should call the toll-free automated number, the Powerline, at 800.448.2383.
Outages can also be reported to any one of the Blue Ridge Electric offices: Alleghany, 336.372.4646; Ashe, 336.246.7138; Caldwell, 828.758.2323; Watauga, 828.264.8894; or Wilkes, 336.838.4655.
Blue Ridge Electric is a member-owned electric cooperative serving some 69,000 members in Ashe, Alexander, Alleghany, Caldwell, Wilkes and Watauga counties.
For more information on how to report an outage, preparing for bad weather, or about your local cooperative, visit www.BlueRidgeEMC.com.
