Large parts of Oconee still powerless

A good swath of Oconee County tonight remained without electric power service, including parts of the Walhalla area.  But crews are at work.  At one restoration site, workers are dealing with an electric power pole on Walhalla’s E. Main Street near the Presbyterian Church.  As the result of Walhalla outages, along with downed lines, sections of a number of Walhalla streets remain closed tonight.  Most Walhalla traffic lights are working.  Exceptions are S. Broad and College and E. Main/highway 28 at Earle Street.  By 5 pm, Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative reported 8,620 Oconee customers still without serve.  Throughout its five-county area Blue Ridge today has been able to bring back service to 20,000 of its customers, but still has a ways to go.  About 350 in-house workers are in the field, and they’ll break for a few hours’ sleep st 9 tonight.  Fresh crews will then go into the field and carry on power restoration work during the overnight hours.  Additional outside crews are scheduled to join the effort early tomorrow morning.  About 350-400 personnel are expected to be on the job tomorrow.  To report a Blue Ridge outage, call 1/888-BLUERIDGE.