Shooting Creek hit hard by storm’s power outage

Crews work around the clock to restore service

  • A Blue Ridge Mountain EMC crew pulls a tap line across the Toccoa River in Suches, Ga. at Cavender Gap and Highway 60. Lineman Chase Hemphill is in the bucket while crewmen Kelly Cruse, Clayton Wood, Jeff Odom, Terrence Kane, Chris Busbee, Jesse Miller and Josh Bryant wait to finish their duties after the tap line gets across the river.
    A Blue Ridge Mountain EMC crew pulls a tap line across the Toccoa River in Suches, Ga. at Cavender Gap and Highway 60. Lineman Chase Hemphill is in the bucket while crewmen Kelly Cruse, Clayton Wood, Jeff Odom, Terrence Kane, Chris Busbee, Jesse Miller and Josh Bryant wait to finish their duties after the tap line gets across the river.

    By Kelly Crawford

    Guest Writer

     

    Blue Ridge Mountain EMC experienced widespread outages following tropical stormforce winds and rain that rolled through our area Thursday, Oct. 29.

    At the peak of the widespread outage, approximately 21,000 meters were without power. BRMEMC’s dispatch office, engineers and crews immediately hit the ground to assess the damage and begin power restoration. Most of the damage came from fallen trees and limbs on power lines and broken power poles.

    Some of the hardest hit areas included Suches, Rainbow Springs, Aska, Spur 60/N.C. 60 and Owltown in Georgia; and the Shooting Creek area of Clay County. Evening efforts continued to shrink the number of power outages to 9,520 meters as of 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 30.

    Time is of the essence when restoring power and crews as well as office personnel work long hours to complete the task. In the BRMEMC service area there are over 6,200 miles of electric distribution lines spread across mountainous terrain, rivers and creeks which complicates restoration efforts. BRMEMC’s first step is to restore power to the greatest number of people possible, which means they start at the substations and work their way down main line three-phase circuits, paying particular attention to feeds with critical infrastructure attached, such as hospitals, county facilities and the like.

    BRMEMC then works to repair taps leading off the mainline circuits and finally service lines to individual homes. Broken power poles take several hours to repair and can be the most time consuming.

    Final assessment numbers are not available at this time. For details visit: www.brmemc.com.