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Dive brief:
- About 2 million electric customers remained without power in the southeastern United States and the Mid-Atlantic on Monday morning after Hurricane Helene devastated utility systems last week, and some areas will require a complete rebuild of energy infrastructure, the utilities said.
- The storm hit Florida as a Category 4, but only about 100,000 customers were without power in the Sunshine State. In contrast, 750,000 were without power in South Carolina; 570,000 in Georgia; and 460,000 in North Carolina.
- “There are many areas in northern South Carolina and the mountains of North Carolina where we’re going to have to completely rebuild parts of our system, not just repair it,” said Jason Hollifield, Duke Energy’s storm director for the Carolinas. , in a statement.
Diving knowledge:
In all, Helene knocked out power to nearly 6 million customers in 10 states, according to the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the investor-owned utilities. Utilities say they can’t estimate restoration times, in some cases, because roads are impassable and grids must be rebuilt.
“Historic flooding, downed trees and debris, and road and bridge closures continue to present major challenges in the hardest-hit areas and are limiting the ability of workers to assess damage and provide customers with estimates of when it is likely to restore electricity to these areas,” EEI said in a statement on Sunday.
Along with the Carolinas and Georgia, there were outages in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
“Power companies are working with local and state officials to access these hard-hit areas and are using helicopters and drones to conduct damage assessments,” EEI said. “In some communities, storm damage was so catastrophic that energy infrastructure must be completely rebuilt before power can be restored.”
Duke Energy was one of the most affected utilities. On Sunday, the utility said it had restored power to more than 1.1 million customers in North Carolina and South Carolina, but about 900,000 remained without power, nearly all in the western parts of each state .
“There are stretches of damage that we can’t even assess yet because of mudslides, flooding and blocked roads,” Hollifield said.
Duke’s transmission infrastructure in the state of South Carolina “was severely damaged and, in many cases, destroyed,” the company said. The integrity of the grid in the state “remained stable during the storm,” meaning Duke can quickly restart as the transmission system is repaired, he said.
In North Carolina, Duke said infrastructure damage was “severe,” with substations under water and thousands of downed utility poles, along with downed transmission towers. “Many areas of North Carolina’s mountains are inaccessible due to mudslides, flooding and blocked roads, limiting the ability to assess and begin repairing damage,” the company said.
Dominion Energy said Sunday evening that it had restored service to more than 320,000 customers in South Carolina, while 116,000 were still without power.
“Although we can offer [recovery] estimates for some areas today, other areas will take longer,” Keller Kissam, president of Dominion Energy South Carolina, said in a statement. “Crews continue to assess damage even as we rebuild our system from the ground up in communities where the impacts were catastrophic.”
Hurricane Helene was the most destructive hurricane in Georgia Power’s history, the company said Sunday evening. More than 5,000 utility poles need to be repaired or replaced, and more than 500 transformers were damaged.
About 610,000 Georgia Power customers have already had power restored. “This rapid response has been made possible by the implementation of new ‘smart grid’ technologies and the quick work of pre-positioned teams who were ready to respond as soon as conditions were safe to do so on Friday,” said the company
Florida Power & Light was one of the first utilities affected by Helene’s landfall on Thursday. The company said it has restored service to more than 95 percent of its affected customers and expected to complete the restoration today.
“We know how difficult it is to be without power,” said FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel. “I want to assure our customers that we are committed to restoring power as soon as possible so they can get back to their normal lives.”
