This is a developing situation. Return for updates as they become available. Last update 7:00PM 9/27/2024. |
South Carolina’s electric cooperatives were hit extremely hard by this morning’s storm, and the restoration process for wide swaths of our state is going to take days, even weeks, not hours.
Hurricane Helene knocked out the power for about 425,000 South Carolina cooperative consumers this morning, a little less than half of our statewide system. About 380,000 of those consumers were still without power as of about an hour ago.
This storm snapped at least several hundred poles, yanked down lines and damaged not just distribution systems, but complex transmission lines and other critical infrastructure.
Almost 50 transmission lines that supply our consumers were out this morning. Those are the big ones that serve as the interstates of our power grid.
As a result, dozens of substations and delivery points – which function like interstate exits for those major transmission lines – were knocked out of commission.
For some of our co-ops, particularly those in the Upstate and along South Carolina’s western border, our folks on the ground say this was the most destructive storm they have ever seen.
Some of those folks have worked at their cooperatives for more than 40 years of experience. They worked through the 2014 ice storm. They worked through Hurricane Hugo in 1989. And this is the worst they’ve ever seen.
A handful of our co-ops saw almost their entire system – up to 98% of their consumers - go offline as the storm wreaked havoc on our infrastructure.
We are still early in the process of assessing all the damage, but we know it’s substantial. It’s very bad.
Our co-ops have crews working across the state to restore power, and we have called in help from co-ops in other states.
We expect to be working around the clock this weekend and into next week to restore power.
It’s important to keep in mind that our co-ops serve some of the most rural areas and the most rugged terrain in our state.
In order to safely restore power, our crews have to inspect every mile of line leading to your homes and businesses before we re-energize them.
To do that, our line crews have had to cut through downed trees and blocked roadways just to reach the infrastructure that needs repairing or replacing.
Our materials and equipment suppliers are having to do the same thing to reach our line crews.
It takes time to do this safely.
Just this morning, we’ve had trees fall on at least two trucks that were out working to restore power to our system.
The workers were OK in both cases, but those incidents underscore why restoring power after a storm of this magnitude takes time.
We are still early in the restoration process.
We are going to work and work and work until the power is back on, and we need your help. Please be patient, and please be understanding with the folks who are out working and doing everything they everything we can to restore power to South Carolina.
Our cooperative members have likely never experienced an outage event like this.
We will continue working around the clock until all power is restored.
Local people will be here, serving you and answering the phones when you call.
It is likely your power will be out for multiple days because of the catastrophic damage here and across our state.
You will need to rely on your emergency plan.
Helene has claimed at least four lives in South Carolina, including two people in Newberry County and two firefighters in Saluda County.
Helene generated wind gusts of 50-75 mph and spun off a number of tornadoes across the state.
The governor and his cabinet worked hard to set and manage expectations. They described clearing the state’s roads and restoring power as a multi-day operation.
The state peaked at 1.25 million power outages.
The state’s utilities stressed that it would take days to restore power. They also highlighted their cooperation and the hard work that crews are doing to get the lights back on.