N.C. Electric Cooperatives Have Restored Almost 100 Percent Of Customers

North Carolina Electric Cooperative

customers are now receiving power.

The few cooperatives with hurricane-related outages are

Albemarle Electric Membership Corporation

(Hertford),

Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative

(Buxton),

Roanoke Electric Cooperative

(Rich Square), and

Tideland Electric Membership Cooperative

(Pantego).

Those cooperatives are located in the northeastern part of North Carolina, where Hurricane Isabel left the most damage.

Hundreds of cooperative line workers are still on the job in these areas. In certain pockets of the system, the devastation was severe, and the repairs are requiring painstaking and time-consuming efforts.

Isabel knocked out Roanoke's entire system and inflicted more physical damage than Hurricane Floyd, another storm that caused 100 percent outages at Roanoke EC. Roanoke EC has restored power to approximately 77 percent of its customers.

Isabel is the first weather system in Albemarle EMC's 58-year history to completely knock out the entire Albemarle system. Approximately 96 percent of Albemarle's customers have electric power today, thanks to the assistance of line crews from other cooperatives throughout North Carolina and neighboring states.

Albemarle estimates that service will be restored to at least 99 percent of its customers by nightfall Wednesday.

As of noon Wednesday, there were 1,180 outages in the Tideland EMC service area. Local authorities have requested that connections to individual structures be delayed until building inspections prove that it is safe to reconnect electricity.

Approximately 275 outages remained at Cape Hatteras EC, which serves Hatteras Island. Nearly all of the outages are structural, which will require repair and inspection before the services are energized.

At the height of Hurricane Isabel, 19 of the state's 27 cooperatives had significant outages totaling 127,000 outages resulting from Isabel's visit to North Carolina.