Crews at work into this evening

Restoration efforts were in progress this evening responding to unprecedented damage to the Blue Ridge Electric power grid caused by Tropical Storm Helene. Hundreds of workers remain deployed across Blue Ridge’s five-county service area, with more arriving and working to restore service.  Governor McMaster noted today that the storm caused “more power outages than maybe ever.”  And Jim Lovinggood, Blue Ridge CEO/President, made the following request: “We ask you for patience over the next few days as we work closely with Duke Energy and other partners to repair transmission lines and restore service.  Our community is resilient, and we will get through this together.”  Blue Ridge top challenge is the service interruption of seven substations, which remain offline due to transmission issues related to Duke Energy.  The transmission lines feed the substations.  Until those lines are restored, power to the substations remain out.  By 4:30 this afternoon, in Blue Ridge’s territory, Oconee remained the county with the most outages — 22,689.  Across the Blue Ridge service area, an estimated 84% of the total customers had no service.