Raleigh, N.C. —Five of North Carolina’s electric cooperatives sent line crews to Kentucky to assist the electric cooperatives in that state with power restoration efforts. A major winter storm moved across Kentucky and neighboring states earlier this week, resulting in ice accumulation significant enough to cause widespread power outages.
The cooperatives in North Carolina that sent crews, including trucks and other mobile support vehicles, to Kentucky are: Blue Ridge EMC based in Lenoir, N.C; Central EMC based in Sanford, N.C.; EnergyUnited based in Statesville, N.C.; Pee Dee EMC based in Wadesboro, NC; and Rutherford EMC based in Forest City, N.C.
The deployment of crews is part of a mutual aid agreement shared between the nation’s nearly 1,000 electric cooperatives to help one another in times of emergency, such as natural disasters. Electric cooperatives across the country use the same line system engineering standards, which means line crews from any part of the country can quickly help sister cooperatives in restoration efforts.
“Electricity is critical to the way we live, and it’s important that people affected by this storm have power restored as quickly as possible,” said Jane Pritchard, director of corporate communications for North Carolina Association of Electric Cooperatives. “We are happy to help our fellow cooperatives and know that they would do the same for us because it’s the cooperative way.”
North Carolina’s electric cooperative serve approximately 2.5 million people in 93 of the state’s 100 counties and maintain almost 97,000 miles of power lines.