SC ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES RESTORE POWER

 

 

NEWS RELEASE

For imme­di­ate release

Oct. 2, 2024

Con­tact: Avery Wilks, (803) 374‑3115; avery.wilks@ecsc.org

S.C. elec­tric coop­er­a­tives restore pow­er to 75% of statewide sys­tem

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina’s elec­tric coop­er­a­tives have now restored pow­er to more than 320,000 con­sumers statewide, turn­ing the lights back on for more than 75% of the co-op mem­bers who lost pow­er when Hur­ri­cane Helene churned through the state Fri­day morn­ing.

Less than 105,000 coop­er­a­tive meters remained offline as of noon on Wednes­day, Oct. 2, down from a peak of 425,000 Fri­day morn­ing. That means less than 12% of the statewide coop­er­a­tive sys­tem remains with­out pow­er, down from a peak of 47%.

Most of those remain­ing out­ages are con­cen­trat­ed in the hard-hit Upstate and along the Pal­met­to State’s west­ern bor­der, where Helene’s heavy rains and high winds brought dev­as­ta­tion not seen in decades.

Coop­er­a­tive crews and con­trac­tors con­tin­ue to make great progress in what amounts to one of the largest storm restora­tion efforts in South Car­oli­na his­to­ry.

More than 2,400 line work­ers are labor­ing around the clock to restore pow­er to co-op con­sumers. They include mutu­al aid crews from a half-dozen S.C. co-ops as well as out-of-state line work­ers from at least 18 states.

The job ahead of them is immense. More than 2,800 snapped co-op pow­er poles – and count­ing – will need to be replaced, and it can take up to four hours for a four-man crew to replace a sin­gle pole.

Parts of the co-op sys­tem remain inac­ces­si­ble due to downed trees and debris. Much of the Pal­met­to State’s pow­er grid will need to be rebuilt rather than repaired.

Coop­er­a­tives are ask­ing that their con­sumers con­tin­ue to pre­pare for extend­ed out­ages. While many out­ages will be restored in the com­ing days, it could take a week or more for parts of the coop­er­a­tive sys­tem to come back online.

“Coop­er­a­tive line work­ers are work­ing night and day to get the lights back on,” said Mike Couick, CEO of the Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tives of South Car­oli­na. “We’ve been touched to see the out­pour­ing of sup­port for our line­men, from mem­bers deliv­er­ing cook­ies and meals to co-op offices to school chil­dren send­ing in let­ters of sup­port. We ask for your con­tin­ued patience and under­stand­ing in the com­ing days.”

A few key points on the ongo­ing restora­tion effort:

• Co-ops help­ing co-ops: Every S.C. coop­er­a­tive has line crews work­ing to restore pow­er to South Car­olini­ans. Crews from co-ops that are back online are now work­ing to restore pow­er for their fel­low co-ops in the Upstate. They include: Berke­ley Elec­tric, Black Riv­er Elec­tric, Fair­field Elec­tric, Hor­ry Elec­tric, Lynch­es Riv­er Elec­tric, San­tee Elec­tric and Tri-Coun­ty Elec­tric.

• The cav­al­ry is here: Addi­tion­al crews are help­ing from at least 18 states: Alaba­ma, Con­necti­cut, Flori­da, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mary­land, Mass­a­chu­setts, Min­neso­ta, New York, North Dako­ta, Ohio, Okla­homa, Ten­nessee, Texas, South Dako­ta, Penn­syl­va­nia and Vir­ginia.
• Infra­struc­ture chal­lenges:About 11 Upstate sub­sta­tions remain offline, down from more than 80 statewide on Fri­day morn­ing. Coop­er­a­tives are work­ing close­ly with their trans­mis­sion providers to re-ener­gize those sub­sta­tions and their down­stream dis­tri­b­u­tion lines. Co-ops are also work­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly to rebuild their dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems to be ready when the trans­mis­sion out­ages are restored.

• Truck­loads of equip­ment: The coop­er­a­tives’ mate­ri­als sup­pli­er, CEEUS, is deliv­er­ing 30 trac­tor trail­er truck­loads of equip­ment and sup­plies to coop­er­a­tive crews across the state every day – a vol­ume of mate­ri­als that rivals the response to Hur­ri­cane Hugo in 1989.

The coop­er­a­tives are urg­ing the pub­lic to exer­cise cau­tion and patience:

• Stay away from downed pow­er lines.
• Use extreme care with portable gen­er­a­tors, keep­ing them out­doors and at least 20 feet from doors, win­dows and vent open­ings.
• Slow down and be mind­ful of road­side line crews work­ing to restore pow­er.
• Be on guard against scams. If you receive a sus­pi­cious call from some­one claim­ing to be a co-op rep­re­sen­ta­tive, hang up imme­di­ate­ly and call your co-op.

For the lat­est updates on pow­er restora­tion efforts, please vis­it ecsc.org or fol­low us @SCcooperatives.

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The Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tives of South Car­oli­na, Inc. is the state asso­ci­a­tion of inde­pen­dent, mem­ber-owned elec­tric coop­er­a­tives. Near­ly 2 mil­lion South Car­olini­ans in all 46 coun­ties use pow­er pro­vid­ed by 18 elec­tric coop­er­a­tives to 800,000 accounts. Togeth­er, elec­tric coop­er­a­tives oper­ate the state’s largest elec­tric pow­er sys­tem with 75,000 miles of pow­er line. Find more infor­ma­tion at www.ecsc.org.