Last Updated on October 26, 2017 9:38 am
As of 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Blue Ridge Energy line technicians and visiting crews have all members restored with power after one of the most devastating fall storms in recent history.
Monday’s storm caused outages for over 12,000 members in the cooperative’s service area of Caldwell, Watauga, Ashe, and Alleghany counties as well as parts of Alexander and Wilkes counties.
Tornado-like winds with sustained heavy rain and flooding in some locations toppled large trees and limbs, breaking power poles and mangling power lines in addition to other destruction in western North Carolina.
Over 150 line technicians worked tirelessly in the storm’s aftermath, often cutting their way through large trees blocking roads and access to nearly 200 heavily damaged areas of the electric system.
Blue Ridge Energy line technicians were assisted by crews from French Broad EMC, Union Power Cooperative, Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative of Pickens, SC, Haynes Electric Utility, and Sumter Utilities.
The cooperative encourages members to keep the PowerLine outage reporting number handy at all times: 1-800-448-2383. Or, use the Blue Ridge mobile app to report outages. A live 24/7 outage map is also available on the app or the cooperative’s website: www.BlueRidgeEnergy.com.
Aerial view of one damaged location on the Blue Ridge Energy system. The cooperative used a helicopter to help assess damaged locations as part of power restoration efforts. More than 12,000 members were restored after one of the most destructive fall storms in recent history.
