Upper Cumberland Electric has restored power to nearly all of its members following severe thunderstorms and strong winds Friday that caused widespread damage.
Executive Vice President Wade Givens said the storms left some 8,000 members without power at the peak of the event. Givens said while a TVA outage caused half of those initial issues and was resolved quickly, the remaining 4,000 members faced longer delays due to heavy damage in the Cookeville area.
“The straight-line winds and the thunderstorms did heavy damage to broken trees, or trees that fell on power poles and broke the power poles,” Givens said. “We had about 14 broken poles and about six that needed extensive rebuild to them. So there was just a lot of damage spread across our territory in a very short period of time.”
Givens said the utility has not yet completed a full assessment to determine the total cost of the equipment and labor required for the repairs. Givens said employees were called in immediately on Friday afternoon and worked through the holiday weekend to replace poles and rebuild infrastructure.
“We’ll assess that when we do an end-of-storm assessment to, you know, kind of what happened and what the extent of everything was, how we handled everything and how grateful we were that it was so safe, those type of things,” Givens said.
Givens said 99.9 percent of all outages are now restored, with the only remaining work located in difficult-to-reach areas of Edgar Evins State Park. Givens said UCEMC worked to restore the power as fast as possible, while maintaining the safety and wellbeing of its employees.
“We know that our members are very important to us, and we know their safety is very important to us, as it is our own team members,” Givens said. “And so we want to make sure that we can get power restored in a very efficient and effective way.”
Givens said the most significant damage occurred south of Cookeville near Cookeville Boat Dock Road and the Burgess Falls area. Givens said crews from Carthage and other district areas joined the effort in Cookeville once their local repairs were finished to ensure an all-hands-on-deck response.
“Storms like this remind us of what that cooperative is all about: neighbors serving neighbors,” Givens said. “We live in these communities too, and when the lights go out, our group doesn’t hesitate to leave their families and go out and work and help someone else’s.”
Givens said the utility remains prepared for additional summer storms by keeping trucks up-to-date and maintaining a steady supply of replacement poles. Givens said residents should have a plan for food and alternative housing in the event of future extended outages.
“We were grateful that safety is something that we heavily focus on,” Givens said. “As you know, our line of business can be very dangerous, and especially in extreme oppressive heat and in very dangerous situations.”
There were no reports of injuries to workers or utility crew members during the restoration process.