Limited Outages as of Friday Morning

Lenoir, North Carolina (February 5, 2010-6 a.m. Update) - Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation is reporting limited power outages that just began occurring as a result of severe winter weather that hit its service area and other areas of North Carolina last evening.

Line technicians are on the way to restore power in the Elk Creek area of Wilkes County where 13 members are without power on Lewis Fork Baptist Church Road as of 6 a.m. Nearly four inches of snow are already covering roadways in the county and snow is still falling.

The only incident overnight was in Alleghany County where line technicians restored power to 28 members in Sparta who lost power from 1:30 a.m. until 3 a.m. due to weather affecting a fuse serving just those homes.
Ice and snow accumulation is predicted through Saturday and cooperative employees remain on high alert to respond quickly should further power restoration efforts be needed.

Blue Ridge Electric members should report outages by calling the cooperative's Powerline at 1-800-448-2383. To view a live outage map, visit www.BlueRidgeEMC.com and click on the "outage map" link located on the bottom right hand side of the screen.

More safety and preparation information is also available on the 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.