Updated: Feb. 24, 2:30 p.m. ET
A monumental effort by electric cooperative lineworkers and mutual aid crews helped put a large swath of the Virginia, Maryland and Delaware shore areas back online following Sunday’s historic blizzard, though complete restoration was several days off.
Delaware Electric Cooperative in Greenwood brought back electricity to about 40,000 homes in the two days following the storm. Another 15,400 remained in the dark as of midday Tuesday with crews encountering difficult conditions in rural areas.
“This is the worst outage event we’ve experienced since the 1994 ice storm and, for many members, this is the longest they have been without power,” the co-op told members on social media Tuesday afternoon. “These types of storms are rare. When they do hit, they cause extensive damage to our system.”
Crews from contractors and multiple Virginia utilities joined 185 DEC employees to respond to 800 different reports of damage on Tuesday, with some restoration potentially lingering into Thursday.
Denton, Maryland-based Choptank Electric Cooperative, headquartered about 20 miles west of DEC, reported good progress, with about 3,900 members without power as of midday Tuesday, down from about 22,000 at peak.
“The damage is extensive and working in the deep snow is difficult, but we are utilizing all resources to work as quickly and safely as possible,” said Choptank, which was getting helping hands from five co-ops in Virginia.
A&N Electric Cooperative was down to about 1,800 outages, down from 12,900, after three Virginia co-ops sent personnel to assist the Tasley, Virginia-based co-op. More than 80 people were in the field responding to power outages and system damage, A&N said.
Steven Johnson is a contributing writer for NRECA.