AccuWeather speaks with Duke Energy on the latest updates in power restoration efforts in the Carolinas after the region was devastated by Helene with heavy rain and flooding.
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00:00Joining us for an update is Jeff Brooks of Duke Energy. And of course, you know, there's been lots
00:05of discussion about North Carolina, but also we have power outages in the upstate of South Carolina,
00:11Jeff. And what's the latest that your crews, how much progress have they been able to make
00:17to restore power in many of these areas? Well, we continue to make the progress that we can,
00:24given the devastation and the damage that we're faced with. We've restored about 1.5 million
00:29customers across both Carolinas, but still a lot going on in the West. You mentioned the upstate
00:35of South Carolina, we're now down under 400,000 customers and under 300,000 in North Carolina,
00:41but you're still looking at about 1,500 to 1,600 outage locations that have to be repaired.
00:47A lot of that is, you know, transmission damage. So main lines that are coming into the area that
00:53supply the region, some substations, and a lot of just lines in the communities,
00:58we estimate that about 50% of the remaining outages that we have on our system will require
01:03rebuilding as opposed to repairing. So a lot of significant damage and, you know, we are using a
01:09lot of innovative technology to get to those locations, to be able to make those restorations,
01:15and we'll just keep working and make the progress we can every day. You're talking about rebuilding,
01:20and we can only imagine that is going to take some time. So when do you anticipate full power
01:24restoration? Well, we hope to have the majority of customers outside those most extreme hit areas
01:31back up by Friday night. So, you know, we are seeing some counties that are making significant
01:37progress. Obviously, the closer you get to the areas that you've been showing, the harder the
01:41restoration is. And those areas, we're still developing those estimates. We hope to have
01:46those soon. And that's going to be, you know, a more extended period because the whole infrastructure
01:51in that community, in some cases, is gone. And when you talk about the infrastructure,
01:56you're talking about the substations, you're talking about, let's just take a power pole,
02:00that you've got to replace the whole power pole. Give our viewers some time. How long does it take
02:08just to redo a whole power pole? One power pole, and I'm sure that you have a lot of those that
02:14are down. That's right. You know, if you think about, you see customer numbers, and that's one
02:19number, but we look more closely at the number of outages. And we have about 1600 or so outages
02:24still to be repaired. That's a location a crew has to go make a repair, it could be a broken pole,
02:29it could be a down line. And if you imagine each of those repairs on average, on a good day,
02:34takes four to five hours, multiply that by the 1600. And you begin to see the scale and scope
02:40when you add the additional challenges of the flooding and the just destroyed infrastructure,
02:45those times get much longer. So this is in many cases, in some areas, a rebuilding,
02:51a reconstruction of infrastructure that has been essentially removed from the grid in those places.
02:58That really helps put it into perspective for some of our viewers out there as your
03:03crews are working hard and we know that it takes some time. And if you can maybe wrap us up here
03:09with any kind of advice you want to give for customers who are still without power?
03:14Well, we've been working hard to make sure that we're trying to get shelters and emergency
03:17services up and we're seeing more of those come into the hard hit areas. Those are resources for
03:22you during this time. We certainly appreciate your patience. There is still a lot of debris
03:27and damage down power lines out there. And even these days after the event, you still can't assume
03:33those those lines don't have power on them, you want to stay away from them and keep your family
03:37safe. There are a lot of crews, we have 18,000 plus crew members working in the region,
03:43so there's a lot of trucks. Please move over, keep away from them, give them room to do their
03:47work safely. They're working in very hard places and we just appreciate your patience. We'll keep
03:52you updated and we're going to do everything we can to get you back up as safely and quickly as
03:57possible.