BLYTHEWOOD – When Helene struck South Carolina on Sept. 27, it hit every Electric Cooperative in the state. That was a double blow to the cooperatives, according to Fairfield Electric’s Doug Payne, Vice President of Member Services.
“Normally, when disaster strikes one or several cooperatives, the other cooperatives can free up crews to send to the affected areas,” Payne said.
That wasn’t the case when Helene struck.
“We couldn’t call on any other cooperatives to help us because they were all dealing with their own damage. We were fortunate that we could get several crews from Sumter Utilities to assist us,” he said. “Other than that, we were on our own.”
And that, Payne said, meant all employees on deck.
“For the number of employees we have,” Payne said. “They did a great job. They came through.
“We had 70 crew members out there working from early morning till 10 or 11 at night. They would come in, get a few hours of rest, load up with more supplies and go out again early the next morning,” Payne said. “And our other employees – dispatchers, our support staff, management, everybody – stepped up. The ones back at the office were receiving food from restaurants and churches, packaging it up and taking meals out to the crews in the field at noon and again at supper time.
“Everybody in the co-op was involved in getting the power back on for our customers,” he said.
“I don’t think I remember us having so much wide-spread damage from a storm in my 39 years with the Co-op,” Payne said. “The western side of our service area – Blythewood, Monticello Road, west of I-77, Fairfield and Chester received a lot of damage. We had to replace 40 power poles, about 200 lines, plus clearing trees off of roads and lines.”
Although half the co-op’s customers – more than 16,000 – were without power initially, the crews cut that number in half each day, Payne said.
“On day 2 (Saturday), we were down to 8,000 without power; Sunday, 3,500; Monday, 1,100; Tuesday, 600; and Wednesday, less than 100,” Payne said.
By Friday, power was restored to all customers, but Fairfield Electric crews weren’t through.
“We still had some cleanup to do, but on Friday, we were able to free up some of our crews to go help Newberry County, one of the more devastated areas in the state,” he said.
“The storm dealt us a blow, but, with the help of the crews from Sumter Utilities, I knew our employees could get through it. And they did,” Payne said. “They take pride in providing reliable service, and I’m really proud of them.
“One other thing,” Payne added, “The community’s patience and words of encouragement meant a lot to all of our employees, especially our linemen.”
