Biggest Thursday Focus: Restoring Power

The major job of restoring power along highway 70 will begin in earnest today with crews from Upper Cumberland Electric and Cookeville Electric.

More than a thunderstorm with downed lines, Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said the corridor’s power grid must rebuilt from the ground.

“There’s hundreds of polls that have been broken,” Porter said. “They have to get the polls in the ground and everything that goes with that poll, the guyed wires, the transformers and insulators, all the wiring and all the hardware. It’s a very time-consuming process.”

Porter said the infrastructure need is even more important because it serves as the UCEMC’s main trunk line from Cookeville to Baxter and on to Smith County.

“It’s going to be a daunting task, but those guys are so good and they’ve been working day and night,” Porter said.

With no rain Thursday, Porter said UCEMC believes they can make progress in rebuilding the infrastructure.