Latest News

Restoring power to parts of rural US after storm will take weeks, energies state

Restoring power to parts of the rural United States might take numerous weeks after Cyclone Helene decimated stretches of the southeast electrical grid, electrical utility officials said on Tuesday.

Helene, which barreled north after making landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, ripped away countless miles of transmission lines and power poles in hard-to-reach parts of the country, members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association stated on a call.

I have actually been in this organization for 38 years, and I have actually never ever seen anything like it, stated Dennis Chastain, who is chief executive officer of Georgia Electric Subscription Corporation. It is destruction that's difficult to describe.

Local electric cooperatives, which are owned by their clients, cover more than half of the country's landscape.

Georgia's transmission supplier for the state's electrical co-ops had 166 distribution stations out during the peak of the storm. In South Carolina, Helene wiped out at least 2,000 power poles, stated Michael Couick, who heads that state's association of co-ops.

In an area around the Blue Ridge Mountains, energy workers are trying to rebuild 7,300 miles of transmission line, which is a length that might nearly cover the size of earth, Couick said.

(source: Reuters)