Monday Morning Outage Restoration Update
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 (March 2, 2009, 5:30 a.m. update) - Line technicians for Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation worked throughout Sunday night to restore power outages caused by severe winter weather Sunday evening that disrupted power to approximately 6,000 members of the cooperative.
As of 5:30 a.m., line technicians had all but 70 Watauga County households restored with power after outages here, which included a substation outage affecting 5,000 people in the Sherwood community that began at 10 p.m. In Ashe County, where the majority of the day's outages occurred, line technicians had all but 80 people restored with power as of early Monday. These members are located primarily in the Deep Gap area of Ashe County.
In Alleghany County, all outages were restored by 3:15 a.m., and in Caldwell County, very few outages occurred during the storm and none were in effect Monday morning.
Heavy, wet snow pulling down power lines caused the majority of the outages. When this situation occurs, power lines can "sag" into each other, causing the power to kick off, or it can pull down the lines to a breaking point. Equipment in substations can also be affected. When power is restored, it must be done so in "phases" to certain line sections at a time in order to safely handle the load created by the demand of heating systems and other appliances and electrical equipment and to avoid another outage.
If an outage occurs, members should call the cooperative's Powerline at 1-800-448-2383.
The cooperative reminds members that downed power lines are a possibility during severe weather and that these lines can still be energized and therefore dangerous or even deadly.
In addition to outages, Blue Ridge Electric asks members to report downed power lines immediately to the cooperative. Everyone except trained Blue Ridge Electric should stay far away from downed lines. Those who see downed lines should try to keep others far away until line technicians arrive. If a power line falls on your vehicle while you're inside, you should stay in your vehicle until emergency personnel arrive to assist. No one except a trained Blue Ridge Electric line technician should ever try to remove or handle a downed power line.
For outage updates at any time, visit BlueRidgeEMC.com and click on the “outage map” link which is located on the left hand side of the screen.
Blue Ridge Electric is a member-owned cooperative utility serving some 73,000 members in Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, Wilkes, and Alexander counties. Find more safety and outage preparation information at BlueRidgeEMC.com.
