As the United States braces for Hurricane Milton this week, co-ops in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina and Tennessee are continuing to work on restoring power to members affected by Hurricane Helene – with the support of co-ops in other states less affected by the storm.
Restoration work was nearing its final stages Tuesday, 1 October, in parts of Florida, where about 37,000 outages remained.
The hurricane, which made landfall in Florida on 26 September, has taken over 166 lives, progressed towards Georgia, North and South Carolina and Tennessee. Over 1,000 people are still unaccounted for with more than 2,000 people in shelters and more than a million without power.
The most damaged states were North and South Carolina, where Helene landed as a tropical storm.
According to the America’s Electric Cooperatives (Nreca), line crews from 17 states had restored power to 825,000 electric co-operative meters by 2 October.
In Florida co-ops managed to lower the number of outages from 200,000 to 22,000. Similarly, in North Carolina co-ops had 86,000 remaining outages. Line workers from 30 electric co-ops in the state and nine other states are working to relieve systems near the Tennessee and Virginia borders, despite facing wretched conditions.
Electric co-ops are usually quick to mobilise when hurricanes like Helene occur. Black River Electric Cooperative (BREC) has sent crews to assist Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative restore power to their members. “Linemen are working night and day around the state to get the lights back on. Co-ops helping co-ops. We are here for you,” BREC posted on social media.
One of its linemen had his house burned to the ground on Friday night. Despite losing everything, he came back to work two days later. BREC, which was able top restore all power by 29 September, is now helping other affected co-ops.
“We are so proud of our linemen and admire their commitment to their work, our community, and their selfless efforts to help others affected by this storm,” the co-op said on social media.
Mitch Bearden, chief communications officer at the Waynesville, North Carolina-based co-op, told the Nreca that the damage experienced by his co-op was “unprecedented”. Bearden said he was unsure of several homes or businesses that may be forever gone due to these storms across our service area.
The co-op still had 10,000 outages on 2 October, with employees of the co-op among those affected.
As efforts to restore power continue, co-ops are advising members to stay safe and be patient.
According to Little River Electric Cooperative in North Carolina, the state hasn’t seen this level of damage since Hurricane Hugo in 1989. The co-op says at least 1,400 co-operative power poles were snapped by this storm and need to be replaced.
“We’ve been hit harder than we could ever imagine,” Chad Stone, interim CEO at Little River Electric Cooperative, said in a video message on social media. “We lost 99% of our whole system,” he added. On 2 October the co-op still had about 10,000 down.
“Our crews are working every day, and hard as they can,” added Stone, explaining that crews from other parts of the country had come to his co-op’s rescue.
“At this time, we’re looking at a few more weeks, but we are working hard as we can to try to get everybody on as soon as possible. Please bear with us. Please stay safe,” he added.
Other co-ops are also helping, including the Cooperative Development Foundation, which runs a Disaster Recovery Fund. CDF has partnered with Nreca and National Co+op Grocers to raise funds for co-ops recovering from the storm’s impact. CDF says donations will “go directly toward ensuring electric co-operatives are fully equipped to restore power to areas affected by Helene; and supporting the entire food co-op ecosystem’s recovery efforts”. Contributions can be made using this link.
