Storms – By Greg Oliver – SENECA – Thunderstorms and accompanying downed trees and power outages are often the results of the hot weather that hits this area each summer. But Blue RIdge Electric Cooperative spokesman Terry Ballenger said last week of storm-related outages “were quite unusual.”

“I’ve been at Blue Ridge for 48 years and I’ve never before seen a situation like this one,” Ballenger said.

Ballenger said the thunderstorms arose on five consecutive afternoons, starting June 23, and that the strange weather pattern was such that each of the five storm fronts followed a very similar path.

“These storms left a wide path of destruction in their wake,” he said. “All toldthe cooperative recorded 16,823 individual outages, equivalent to almost 25 percent of our total member base.”

Ballenger said some of the outages took p0lace on different days at the same locations, meaning a number of members saw service interrupted more than once during that five-day period. That did not go unnoticed by Blue Ridge Crews working in the field. “They saw this reoccurrence day after day,” Ballenger said. “They would be in the process of re-connecting service to the last members affected by the previous day’s storm, only to have a new storm come roaring through the area. By our count, the cooperative also suffered 49 broken poles as a result of the storm damage, and anytime a broken pole is involved, it typically takes a crew four times as long to restore service in comparison to outages where no broken poles where involved.”

Official: Storms last week left ‘wide path of destruction’

Official Storms last week left wide path of destruction

Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative spokesman Terry Ballenger said storms that swept across the area for five consecutive days last week broke 49 of the company poles.