Laurens Electric – Wednesday Morning Update

As of Wednesday at 8 a.m., power has been restored to 36,227 members, representing 57% of our member-base.

22 of 32 substations are back online.

The number of broken power poles has now been assessed at over 300. It takes a crew 2-4 hours to remove and reset a new pole.

As we’ve previously reported, transmission lines to some parts of Abbeville, Anderson, Laurens, Newberry, Union, and Spartanburg Counties may not come online until Oct 7. Different transmission lines serve these areas, and those lines will be brought back up at different times – some sooner than that date. That’s just the outside estimate.

After transmission is restored, crews will have to operate outward from substations, replacing broken power poles, restringing our distribution lines, rebuilding circuits, and making repairs. This work has been ongoing since the storm hit, but so much infrastructure was damaged that there will still be work to do before power is restored.

At this point in the recovery and rebuilding process, we are still unable to provide more specific estimates as to when crews will be in certain areas removing downed lines and making repairs.

As more progress is made, more specific information will be provided.

The co-op has 225 crews representing more than 450 line technicians and right-of-way personnel working in rotating shifts 24 hours a day in all parts of our service area. More crews are coming from others states.

We are making progress, but the damage to our system was widespread and catastrophic. It will take time to recover, but we won’t stop working until power is restored to every member.