Final Outages in Watauga County Being Restored

Also: Alert on Scam Artists Posing as Blue Ridge Employees

Lenoir, North Carolina (December 30, 2009-11 a.m. update) - As the final outages are being restored to the remaining 350 Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation members in Watauga County, reports of scam artists are arising.

Beware if someone knocks at your door asking to come inside your home. While Blue Ridge Electric officials may knock on your door to speak to you from outside, they do not need access inside your home to restore power. If you have any doubts about a person claiming to be a Blue Ridge Electric employee or someone assisting Blue Ridge crews, please call Blue Ridge Electric at your local district office or the general toll free number: 1-800-451-5474 to speak with a Blue Ridge employee to confirm identification. Additionally, all Blue Ridge Electric employees have personalized identification. If someone tries to forcefully enter your home or if questionable people are around your home, contact local law enforcement authorities.

As final outage locations are repaired, there may be isolated, single residence outages that are difficult to detect. Therefore members in Watauga County are asked to contact the cooperative at 264-8894 or 1-800-448-2383 if they're at their service location and still do not have power.

More than 25,000 members were without power at the height of the outages after the worst ice storm in recent history hit the High Country on Christmas day.

The ice storm not only damaged about half of the cooperative's 7,000 miles of power lines, it also brought down massive amounts of trees, further damaging power lines and leaving behind 150 broken poles. Many of the outage sources where the system was damaged were in remote areas of rough, mountainous terrain. In some cases linemen are using bulldozers to get through debris which means power poles must be set primarily by hand without the assistance of line trucks, which is a much lengthier process.

"The things that make our mountain districts beautiful--the many trees, hillsides and rough terrain--also make it more difficult to restore power after such a severe weather event that has torn down so much of the system," said Renee Whitener, director of public relations.

"A large number of crews from 11 other utilities responded to our request for help and more than 300 linemen worked on power restoration," she continued. "We want to thank everyone who has had a part in feeding and housing all our line technicians so that they can continue to work in these tough conditions. Many of them have been here since Christmas morning, working long hours to get power restored as quickly as possible," she added.

Assisting Blue Ridge line technicians are crews from neighboring cooperatives Rutherford, Randolph, Piedmont, EnergyUnited, UnionPower, Pee Dee, Lumbee River, and Central EMC, and Blue Ridge Energies as well as crews from Pike Corporation, Carter Utility Services and Asplundh Tree Expert Company.

An outage tracking map link and other information is available on Blue Ridge Electric's web site at www.BlueRidgeEMC.com and on the cooperative's Facebook page.

Blue Ridge Electric serves some 73,000 members in Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, Wilkes, Avery and Alexander counties.