WEC begins Friday with over 160 crew members working to restore power

Matt Boster

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Posted by: Matt Boster
Date: Oct 13 2018 9:50 AM

HARTFORD, Alabama — Wiregrass Electric Cooperative began its second full day of restoration efforts before sunrise this morning, deploying over 160 linemen across its service area. The cooperative currently has 13,397 members without power, down from a peak of 18,000 on Wednesday after the storm.

WEC now has power restored to all its substations and has begun the work of getting their main circuits energized. “Now that we have functioning transmission lines,” says Brad Kimbro, Chief Operating Officer at WEC, “we will work out from our substations into these communities to restore power. That’s the main work we are doing today. It involves a lot of repair and restoration, but it’s the fastest way to get power back to our members.” While power to thousands has been restored already, some areas will still need days in order rebuild the destroyed infrastructure.

“We still have massive damage to work through south and east of Dothan,” said Kimbro. “Some areas, to see them, you would think a bomb had exploded. Some of our worst areas right now are in Colombia, Cottonwood, Rehobeth, Pansey, Ashford and parts of our Big Springs substation.” Kimbro asks for patience from WEC members as they work to recover from the hurricane. “We know this is a lengthy outage,” he said.

“We want to assure everyone we are working as quickly and safely as possible. It took years to build the distribution system in these areas, and it was destroyed in a few hours.” WEC also wants to express gratitude for all the support they’ve been given since the hurricane swept through.

“We appreciate all the well wishes, prayers and kind words given to us through Facebook and elsewhere,” said Kimbro. “It means so much to our employees and all the crews who have come from all over to help us. Thank you!”

WEC wants to also thank the cooperatives who have sent crews to help: Sand Mountain, Cherokee, Marshall-DeKalb Electric, Baldwin, Central Alabama, Covington, Cullman, Joe Wheeler, North Alabama, Southern Pine and Tombigbee Electric cooperatives.

For live updates on the number of outages and their locations, visit wiregrass.coop/electric/outage-map/. WEC members can report outages by calling 1-888-469-6882 or by downloading the Wiregrass Electric mobile app. Members can also receive updates by liking WEC’s Facebook page.

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