Power restoration in the Carolinas after Helene

AccuWeather

AccuWeather speaks with Duke Energy on the latest updates in power restoration efforts in the Carolinas after the region was devastated by Helene with heavy rain and flooding.

Transcript

00:00Joining us for an update is Jeff Brooks of Duke Energy. And of course, you know, there's been lots

00:05of discussion about North Carolina, but also we have power outages in the upstate of South Carolina,

00:11Jeff. And what's the latest that your crews, how much progress have they been able to make

00:17to restore power in many of these areas? Well, we continue to make the progress that we can,

00:24given the devastation and the damage that we're faced with. We've restored about 1.5 million

00:29customers across both Carolinas, but still a lot going on in the West. You mentioned the upstate

00:35of South Carolina, we're now down under 400,000 customers and under 300,000 in North Carolina,

00:41but you're still looking at about 1,500 to 1,600 outage locations that have to be repaired.

00:47A lot of that is, you know, transmission damage. So main lines that are coming into the area that

00:53supply the region, some substations, and a lot of just lines in the communities,

00:58we estimate that about 50% of the remaining outages that we have on our system will require

01:03rebuilding as opposed to repairing. So a lot of significant damage and, you know, we are using a

01:09lot of innovative technology to get to those locations, to be able to make those restorations,

01:15and we'll just keep working and make the progress we can every day. You're talking about rebuilding,

01:20and we can only imagine that is going to take some time. So when do you anticipate full power

01:24restoration? Well, we hope to have the majority of customers outside those most extreme hit areas

01:31back up by Friday night. So, you know, we are seeing some counties that are making significant

01:37progress. Obviously, the closer you get to the areas that you've been showing, the harder the

01:41restoration is. And those areas, we're still developing those estimates. We hope to have

01:46those soon. And that's going to be, you know, a more extended period because the whole infrastructure

01:51in that community, in some cases, is gone. And when you talk about the infrastructure,

01:56you're talking about the substations, you're talking about, let's just take a power pole,

02:00that you've got to replace the whole power pole. Give our viewers some time. How long does it take

02:08just to redo a whole power pole? One power pole, and I'm sure that you have a lot of those that

02:14are down. That's right. You know, if you think about, you see customer numbers, and that's one

02:19number, but we look more closely at the number of outages. And we have about 1600 or so outages

02:24still to be repaired. That's a location a crew has to go make a repair, it could be a broken pole,

02:29it could be a down line. And if you imagine each of those repairs on average, on a good day,

02:34takes four to five hours, multiply that by the 1600. And you begin to see the scale and scope

02:40when you add the additional challenges of the flooding and the just destroyed infrastructure,

02:45those times get much longer. So this is in many cases, in some areas, a rebuilding,

02:51a reconstruction of infrastructure that has been essentially removed from the grid in those places.

02:58That really helps put it into perspective for some of our viewers out there as your

03:03crews are working hard and we know that it takes some time. And if you can maybe wrap us up here

03:09with any kind of advice you want to give for customers who are still without power?

03:14Well, we've been working hard to make sure that we're trying to get shelters and emergency

03:17services up and we're seeing more of those come into the hard hit areas. Those are resources for

03:22you during this time. We certainly appreciate your patience. There is still a lot of debris

03:27and damage down power lines out there. And even these days after the event, you still can't assume

03:33those those lines don't have power on them, you want to stay away from them and keep your family

03:37safe. There are a lot of crews, we have 18,000 plus crew members working in the region,

03:43so there's a lot of trucks. Please move over, keep away from them, give them room to do their

03:47work safely. They're working in very hard places and we just appreciate your patience. We'll keep

03:52you updated and we're going to do everything we can to get you back up as safely and quickly as

03:57possible.

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