One of the core principles of rural electric cooperatives—Cooperation Among Cooperatives—was on full display as 23 line workers from three other Virginia cooperatives assisted Community Electric with power restoration. Combined with the hard work of CEC’s line workers, crews made immense progress in brutally cold and icy conditions, reducing the number of outages to fewer than 400 as of Tuesday afternoon, down from a peak of more than 4,000 in the immediate aftermath of Winter Storm Fern.
Team members from Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative, Prince George Electric Cooperative, and Southside Electric Cooperative assisted CEC’s linemen through extremely hazardous and complicated conditions. In addition to the ice and severe weather, generator back feed, broken poles, and massive trees falling on power lines were major challenges during this outage. Thousands of trees and tree limbs—an estimated 5,000-plus—fell on power lines, with six utility poles broken within CEC’s distribution system.
Nonetheless, as of Tuesday morning, only one broken pole remained. Crews focused on restoring power to those who endured the longest-duration outages caused by the storm.
“I couldn’t be prouder of all these linemen—ours and those from other supporting co-ops—who worked long hours and weathered brutal conditions to bring lights and comfort back to our member-owners,” said CEC President and CEO Steven A. Harmon. “We absolutely wanted to restore power to each and every household as quickly as possible while prioritizing the safety of each one of these linemen so they could return home safely to their loved ones. This storm and its aftermath will be remembered for some time, and I thank all of our members for their patience and support as the region recovers.”
CEC reminded members that if they were running a mobile power generator, they should turn their main breaker OFF. Failure to do so created a serious safety risk for linemen and complicated restoration efforts. Community Electric also encouraged members to monitor the cooperative’s Facebook page as restoration work continued.
Lastly, members were encouraged to monitor the following webpages for outage information and should bookmark these for future outages:
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Outage Center: https://www.comelec.coop/outage-center/report-an-outage/
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Outage Map: https://ebill.comelec.coop/maps/OutageWebMap/
All estimated restoration times were posted on the outage map. If an estimated time did not appear, it meant the restoration time was unknown and dependent upon crews arriving on site and assessing the situation.
