News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Roughly about 20 percent of Upper Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation customers are without power.
At the beginning of Wednesday, that number was at about 35 percent. CEO Jennifer Brogdon said outages were as low as 15 percent, but trees continued to fall throughout the day.
“The issue is with the weight of the snow and the ice still on the trees,” Brogdon said. “Sometimes, we take two steps forward and one step back, and if a tree snaps and falls on a line, we find ourselves in the same position.”
Brogdon said crews made significant progress in Jackson County Wednesday. Brogdon said the past two days in that area has been spent setting up three phase lines to later address smaller lines.
“Now, we are starting on what we call is, “Heat Those Back Up,” Brogdon said. “We are keeping our fingers crossed that we are going to be able to get several hundred people on.”
According to Overton County EMA Director Chris Masiongale, outages within the county increased to about 3,500 Wednesday. Brogdon said lots of isolated outages remain in that area.
“We are kind of holding our own there,” Brogdon said. “We have made a little bit of progress in the Allons community. We were able to get some right-of-ways crews out there and also get some support from the state forestry department.”
As for Putnam County, Brogdon said crews are working up both Buck and Brotherton Mountains. Brogdon said if a significant amount of snow and ice falls Wednesday, some progress of restorations will be lost.
“The silver lining is that we have lost a bunch of our weak trees already,” Brogdon said. “So hopefully, it won’t be as bad as before.”
Brogdon said many customers are asking questions about how power is being restored. Brogdon said it is not uncommon to see your neighbor with power while you have an outage.
“If you called it in, we know that there is work to be done there,” Brogdon said. “It is not uncommon for neighbors to be served by different power lines, so that could be the case in that situation. Especially if there is another group of neighbors that are without power, but if your whole neighborhood is restored with power, and you don’t have power, do make sure you call us.”
When lights flicker, Brogdon said that is usually caused by branches snapping and hitting power lines. Brogdon said outages only need to be reported once through the outage hotline or UCEMC website.
