Final Outages in Watauga County Nearly Restored

Lenoir, North Carolina (December 30, 2009-8 p.m. update) – Power outages are down to 60 as of 8 p.m. and linemen continue working this evening toward full restoration for Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation members in Watauga County.

As the final locations are repaired, there may be isolated, single residence outages that are difficult to detect. Therefore, members in Watauga County who are at their service location and still do not have power are asked to contact the cooperative at (828) 264-8894 or 1-800-448-2383.

Residents should also be aware of reports of scam artists posing as Blue Ridge workers trying to gain access to homes. Be careful if someone knocks at your door asking to come inside your home. While Blue Ridge Electric employees 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 the cooperative ‘s local district office or the general toll free number: 1-800-451-5474 to speak with a Blue Ridge employee to confirm identification. Furthermore, all Blue Ridge Electric employees have personalized identification to be carried at all times.

If questionable people are around your home, contact local law enforcement authorities.

At the height of the outages, more than 25,000 members were without power after the worst ice storm since Hurricane Hugo some 20 years ago hit the High Country.

Crews from 11 other utilities responded to assist Blue Ridge linemen 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.

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 used 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.

"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," said Renee Whitener, director of public relations.

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.