Some Restoration Progress Made – An Update from Laurens Electric

Restoration work continues this morning. Power has been restored to approximately 20 percent of our service area.

Hundreds of crews are in the field, and we are expecting dozens more today from as far away as Ohio to help.

Duke has made progress with transmission lines, getting the power flowing to some substations in the northern part of our service area, and will continue working non-stop. We expect an update from them regarding restoration estimates later today.

Once power returns to our substations, linemen will be better able to assess damage and continue repairs in order to supply power to the distribution lines that bring power to homes and businesses.

There is still a huge amount of work to do. Anyone who has driven through the area has seen the massive number of trees down across power lines, transformers on the ground, and snapped power poles – at the least, we estimate 200 power poles have broken throughout our service area. Removing and replacing poles is a time- and labor-intensive job that linemen will perform over and over for the next several days. And as many people discovered yesterday evening, finding food to power them through the day is a job in and of itself.

They will be out working with buckets and chainsaws until power is fully restored to all.

As communications issues persist (communications line were impacted in much the same way as power lines), the best way to report a power outage or downed power line is by calling (864) 682-3141 and following the prompt to use the automated reporting system.

Every employee at the co-op is on hand and working hard to bring power back to our members, and we greatly appreciate our members’ understanding and patience during this unprecedented event.