Outage Restoration Update

Lenoir, North Carolina (December 19, 9 a.m. update) - Line technicians for Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation worked throughout Friday night and Saturday morning to restore power outages caused by Friday’s snow storm.

As of 9 a.m., power is restored to all members affected by yesterday’s storm except for a few remaining individual scattered outages. Blue Ridge line technicians are restoring these remaining outages and some crews have been sent to assist sister cooperative French Broad Electric Membership Corporation in its restoration efforts.

A total of 819 Blue Ridge Electric members were affected by the storm related outage in Caldwell and Watauga counties.

In the Globe community near Kirby Mountain Road in Caldwell County, outages affecting 480 of those members began at 6:47 p.m. Friday due to broken poles. Power was restored to sections of the community throughout the night, with full restoration complete at 8:46 a.m. today.

In Watauga County, outages affecting 339 members in the Bethel community began at 9:45 p.m. and was restored at 11:49 p.m. Outages here were primarily a result of heavy, wet snow pulling down power lines.

Members should report outages by calling the cooperative's Powerline at 1-800-448-2383. To view outage updates at any time, visit www.BlueRidgeEMC.com and click on the "outage map" link located on the left hand side of the screen.

As a safety reminder, the cooperative reminds members that downed power lines can still be energized and therefore dangerous or even deadly. Members should report downed power lines to the cooperative and stay far away from this potentially dangerous situation.

Blue Ridge Electric serves some 73,000 members in Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, Wilkes, and Alexander counties. Find more safety and outage preparation information at www.BlueRidgeEMC.com.