If You are Still Without Power, Please Call Blue Ridge Electric Now: 8:30 a.m. Update

For Immediate Release

Contact: Renee Whitener, Director of Public Relations, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, (828) 758-2383, Ext. 3213; or E-mail: Renee Whitener

Lenoir, North Carolina (February 2, 2008) – With power restoration efforts nearly complete, Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation asks that any members who are still without power to call the cooperative at 1-800-448-2383.

"It's very important to call us to report any outage," said Renee Whitener, director of public relations. "It's especially important to report any remaining outages right now as we're conducting final clean up work and planning to send our additional line crews home soon."

She explained that while Blue Ridge Elecric is aware and working to restore power outages, there's always a slight chance that an isolated problem could be causing an outage at a single location. "There's a slight chance we may not know about it unless it's called in and reported to us," she added. "We want to make sure everyone has their power back on today."

Members are asked to report all outages by calling the cooperative's automated Powerline at 1-800-448-2383. Have the account number, address, and telephone number of the affected location on hand if possible.