Ice storm

plays havoc
By Melanie Davis
melanie@mountaintimes.com

An ice storm early Friday morning covered the High Country with an average of one quarter of an inch of ice, although some locations received one half of an inch, according to the National Weather Service Web site.

The ice caused fallen trees throughout the area, leaving an estimated 2,000 members of the Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation without power in Watauga County.

Throughout the Blue Ridge coverage area, which includes Alleghany, Alexander, Ashe, Avery, Caldwell, Watauga and Wilkes counties, a total of 4,000 members were affected.

An estimated 200 different outage locations were reported by Blue Ridge Electric. Line technicians worked through the night Friday and Saturday to restore power. Crews from Rutherford Electric Membership Corporation, Energy United, Surry Yadkin Electric Membership Corporation and Shaw Energy Delivery Services Inc. assisted Blue Ridge crews in power restoration.

Electric customers in Watauga County were fully restored by Friday evening. Restoration for all Blue Ridge customers was completed by 6 p.m. Saturday.

A statement from the company attributed problems with restoration to high wind advisories and the numerous locations requiring attention. A large percentage of outages occurred along the Blue Ridge Parkway area. The largest concentrated outage occurred in Lenoir, where 238 members in the Patterson community were affected.

Members are asked to call the cooperative’s automated Powerline at (800) 448-2383 to report outages as soon as they occur. If possible, have the account number, address and telephone number of the affected location.

Director of public relations Renee Whitener said while Blue Ridge Electric is aware of power outages, there is always a chance that an isolated problem could be causing an outage at a single location.

“There is a slight chance we may not know about it [outage] unless it’s called in and reported to us,” Whitener said.