Blue Ridge Electric on High Alert

Lenoir, North Carolina (January 22-9 a.m. update, 2010) – Line technicians with Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation are working today to finish restoring power to a remaining 93 members whose service was affected by ice accumulation on power lines last night.

The majority of overnight outages were in Alleghany County, where one of the larger concentrations occurred in the Roaring Gap community. Power was out for about an hour and a half when a circuit outage affecting a substation left 1,500 members without power from 11:17 p.m. until 1:13 a.m. today.

As of 9 a.m., 18 members in Alleghany County are without power while outages total 46 in Watauga County and 29 in Ashe County. Caldwell County did not experience any outages.

Temperatures are warming and conditions should improve today, but the cooperative cautions members to remain on alert this evening as temperatures fall and icing may once again present problems.

If members are still without power, or if outages occur tonight, members should report them by calling the cooperative's 24-hour Powerline at 1-800-448-2383. View a live outage map.

As a safety reminder, downed power lines can still be energized and therefore dangerous or even deadly! The cooperative reminds members to stay far away from downed power lines and to report them immediately to Blue Ridge Electric.

More safety and preparation information is also available on the cooperative’s web site as well as on Blue Ridge Electric's Facebook page.

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