Last Updated on January 19, 2013 8:37 am
More than 200 linemen with Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation with crews from Rutherford EMC, Union Power, French Broad EMC, York Electric, Haywood EMC, EnergyUnited, and Sumter, Pike and Carter utility contract crews are out in full force today working to restore power to 1,435 members still affected by Thursday night’s snow storm.
Linemen have faced a huge challenge in this storm: days of heavy rain before Thursday night’s storm loosened soil and tree roots. When heavy wet snow fell Thursday night, the extra weight on limbs caused trees to fall—many outside the cooperative’s rights of way that were tall enough to crash down onto power lines. The heavy wet snow alone also weighted down power lines, bringing down spans of line in some areas, causing more damage and outages.
Ashe County received most of the damage, where crews are diligently working today to restore 1,407 members with power. Linemen will also be working in Alleghany County, where power lines are down across the New River affecting 11 members, and to Wilkes County where 16 members remain without power as well as one member in Watauga County.
A total of 9,000 members were affected at the height of the storm Thursday night.
Members should report all outages by calling the cooperative's PowerLine at 1-800-448-2383.
Blue Ridge Electric also warns the public that downed power lines can still be energized and therefore dangerous or even deadly! Stay far away from downed power lines and report them immediately to the cooperative.
To check outage status at any time, click the “Outage Map” on the left hand side of the screen at www.BlueRidgeEMC.com. Information is also available on the cooperative’s Facebook and Twitter sites: www.facebook.com/blueridgeemc and www.twitter.com/blueridgeemc.