AP Archive | The process of restoring electricity to western North Carolina grinds on @APArchive | Uploaded October 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 week ago.
(4 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Asheville, North Carolina - 4 October 2024
1. Various of energy company crews working on power lines, digging holes
2. SOUNDBITE (English) David Martin, Duke Energy Engineer:
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
"We had a catastrophic flood that came through this area that washed out numerous poles and power lines and we're in the process of rebuilding that now."
4. SOUNDBITE (English) David Martin, Duke Energy Engineer:
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“When repairing, most of your facility is there, it’s just putting wire back up, normally. In this case, we’ve got to start all new. With new poles, new wires, new transformers, new services, everything. It’s all been washed out.”
STORYLINE:
Along the Swannanoa River Road on Asheville’s east side, the painstaking process of restoring electricity to western North Carolina grinds on.
Nearly 700,000 homes and businesses in the Southeast are still without power more than a week after Hurricane Helene blew through the region.
Most of the outages are in the Carolinas and Georgia.
Duke Energy and its contractors were spread out down the road on Friday afternoon, setting about 20 new electricity poles in an area where the river’s floodwaters snapped or swept away many poles.
The company says it expects to restore another 150,000 outages in North Carolina and South Carolina by Sunday. But Brooks said the company isn’t yet willing to estimate when the remaining 100,000 customers, mostly in western North Carolina, will get their lights back.
Around Asheville, Duke is still focusing on restoring transmission and main feeder lines. The one it was rebuilding Friday feeds electricity to two different circuits. But in many cases, the company hasn’t yet evaluated damage on smaller power lines along side roads and in neighborhoods.
It's not unusual for power restoration after a big hurricane to begin with a sprint, restoring service to large numbers of customers in lightly affected areas. And there’s always a stage at the end that’s a crawl, repairing difficult outages that serve small numbers of customers.
But the extensive damage caused by flooding means the crawl stage has arrived early in North Carolina’s mountains.
David Martin, who has done engineering work for Duke for three decades in the Asheville area, called the flood “catastrophic,” bringing far worse damage than any other event he has ever seen.
“Repairing, most of your facility is there, it’s just putting wire back up, normally,” Martin said. “In this case, we’ve got to start all new -- new poles, new wires, new transformers, new services, everything. It’s all been washed out.”
Just digging the hole and placing one pole can take up to two hours, according to Martin.
And that doesn’t count the time to attach equipment or then to come along and string the actual lines.
And while there were a few pre-storm poles that workers were trying to save Friday, much of the infrastructure was totally gone.
Some of Duke’s lines had been washed into the middle of a fairway on Asheville’s city golf course, tangled up with utility poles and trees.
More than 220 people died in the storm, and crews are still trying to reach people who haven't been accounted for in some hard-to-reach places.
The storm also caused severe damage to many city water systems.
AP video shot by Jeff Amy
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(4 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Asheville, North Carolina - 4 October 2024
1. Various of energy company crews working on power lines, digging holes
2. SOUNDBITE (English) David Martin, Duke Energy Engineer:
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
"We had a catastrophic flood that came through this area that washed out numerous poles and power lines and we're in the process of rebuilding that now."
4. SOUNDBITE (English) David Martin, Duke Energy Engineer:
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“When repairing, most of your facility is there, it’s just putting wire back up, normally. In this case, we’ve got to start all new. With new poles, new wires, new transformers, new services, everything. It’s all been washed out.”
STORYLINE:
Along the Swannanoa River Road on Asheville’s east side, the painstaking process of restoring electricity to western North Carolina grinds on.
Nearly 700,000 homes and businesses in the Southeast are still without power more than a week after Hurricane Helene blew through the region.
Most of the outages are in the Carolinas and Georgia.
Duke Energy and its contractors were spread out down the road on Friday afternoon, setting about 20 new electricity poles in an area where the river’s floodwaters snapped or swept away many poles.
The company says it expects to restore another 150,000 outages in North Carolina and South Carolina by Sunday. But Brooks said the company isn’t yet willing to estimate when the remaining 100,000 customers, mostly in western North Carolina, will get their lights back.
Around Asheville, Duke is still focusing on restoring transmission and main feeder lines. The one it was rebuilding Friday feeds electricity to two different circuits. But in many cases, the company hasn’t yet evaluated damage on smaller power lines along side roads and in neighborhoods.
It's not unusual for power restoration after a big hurricane to begin with a sprint, restoring service to large numbers of customers in lightly affected areas. And there’s always a stage at the end that’s a crawl, repairing difficult outages that serve small numbers of customers.
But the extensive damage caused by flooding means the crawl stage has arrived early in North Carolina’s mountains.
David Martin, who has done engineering work for Duke for three decades in the Asheville area, called the flood “catastrophic,” bringing far worse damage than any other event he has ever seen.
“Repairing, most of your facility is there, it’s just putting wire back up, normally,” Martin said. “In this case, we’ve got to start all new -- new poles, new wires, new transformers, new services, everything. It’s all been washed out.”
Just digging the hole and placing one pole can take up to two hours, according to Martin.
And that doesn’t count the time to attach equipment or then to come along and string the actual lines.
And while there were a few pre-storm poles that workers were trying to save Friday, much of the infrastructure was totally gone.
Some of Duke’s lines had been washed into the middle of a fairway on Asheville’s city golf course, tangled up with utility poles and trees.
More than 220 people died in the storm, and crews are still trying to reach people who haven't been accounted for in some hard-to-reach places.
The storm also caused severe damage to many city water systems.
AP video shot by Jeff Amy
===========================================================
Find out more about AP Archive: aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: instagram.com/APNews
You can license this story through AP Archive: aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/1a14711a46ac4064bd1acedf9d6faeef
