embership M
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TWENTY TWENTY FOUR
MATTERS
Helene: Another “H” Named Storm We Won’t Forget 35 years ago, in late September, Hurricane Hugo made landfall near Charleston, South Carolina, tearing a destructive path northward into our service area. For that span of time, the storm was the worst in the cooperative’s history, causing widespread devastation to the electric grid from the foothills to the mountains. In September of this year, just five days after the anniversary of Hugo, we were impacted by Helene. Helene made a historic mark on our service territory. By the end of the day Friday, September 27, it was clear Helene rivaled Hugo. As damage assessments by air commenced on Saturday, September 28, it was evident that Hugo had been eclipsed in the scope of damage done to our grid. The combination of hurricane-force wind gusts, record-breaking flooding, and compromised mountainsides led to outages that rendered more than 70,000 meters offline. Hundreds of poles were snapped, knocked over, or in many cases, completely washed away. In some areas, time had returned to 1936, when Blue Ridge Energy was born and electric infrastructure didn’t exist in our area. For 16 days, Blue Ridge Energy crews and mutual assistance teams from around the country would begin the process of rebuilding what was lost. Through the chaos, stories of heroism emerged. Crews worked tirelessly, often in the dark, to restore power—united by a shared mission to bring light back to our communities.
We are Mountain Strong.
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11/8/24 11:55 AM