COLUMBIA – South Carolina’s electric cooperatives are working around the clock to restore power after Hurricane Helene tore a path of destruction through the Palmetto State Friday morning.
As of 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, approximately 276,000 co-op members remain without power, down from a peak of 425,000 on Friday morning. Most of the remaining outages are concentrated in the western half of the state, and particularly the Upstate, where Helene’s destruction of critical electric infrastructure has surpassed that of even Hurricane Hugo in 1989.
Cooperative members in western South Carolina should prepare for outages of at least a week, if not longer, as crews repair and replace a mangled power grid.
“This is not a simple restoration job,” said Mike Couick, CEO of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina. “For many areas, particularly in the Upstate and along the western border of South Carolina, co-ops are essentially rebuilding our electric system from the ground up.”
A few stats that illustrate the extent of the damage:
- At least 1,400 cooperative power poles – and counting – were snapped by the storm and require replacement. For context, it takes about one to four hours, on average, for a crew of four to replace a single pole.
- Just under half of the cooperative system’s substations across the state – about 80 in total – remain offline due to transmission outages.
- The cooperatives’ materials supplier, CEEUS, is shipping out 15 tractor trailer loads of equipment and supplies a day – about the same volume of materials as were required in the aftermath of Hugo. Cooperatives are requesting about 10 times as much material as usual for a typical storm restoration effort. The required materials include wood crossarms, overhead transformers, fuses, hot line clamps, and other equipment typically seen on a power pole.
Crews from every South Carolina electric cooperative are working in the field, including some who have completed restoration work for their co-ops on the coast and now are helping Upstate co-ops restore power.
About 140 out-of-state line workers are expected to help with that effort, including crews from Alabama, Florida, Ohio and Virginia. The cooperatives also are working with their transmission providers, Santee Cooper and Duke Energy, to restore power as quickly as possible.
“Our co-ops understand the significant inconvenience of extended power outages,” Couick said. “We need your help as we navigate this challenge. Please stay safe and continue to be patient as we work to restore power to South Carolina.”
For the latest updates on power restoration efforts, please visit ecsc.org or follow us @SCcooperatives.
