Thousands still without power
By Rochelle Moore
Published in News on October 11, 2016 10:03 AM
More than 30,000 Wayne County residents are still without electricity with more customers experiencing power losses late Monday.
Duke Progress Energy and Tri-County Electric estimate that electric outages could continue the remainder of the week and potentially through Sunday.
Duke Energy reported an increase in additional power outages throughout the county Monday as nearly 26,000 customers were without electricity by sundown.
As of 7 a.m., Tri-County EMC is reporting 9,000 outages in Kinston, La Grange, Seven Springs and Pink Hill, said Bob Kornegay, Tri-County Electric manager of marketing services.
Even though the Rosewood community had electricity after the storm, service went out Monday at about 4 p.m., after a transmission station near Duke Energy's H.F. Lee power plant was turned off because of potential flooding concerns, Kornegay said.
"A lot of Goldsboro is back off, and it's going to be in the dark until the water recedes in that area," near the power plant, Kornegay said.
Tri-County Electric attempted to backfeed electricity through other power lines into the Rosewood community, where a near 3,300 customers are serviced. Kornegay said backfeeding electricity will not provide service for all the customers experiencing power outages.
Tri-County Electric has seven electric substations without power in the Grantham, Fremont, LaGrange, Seven Springs, Kinston, Rosewood and Albertson areas. The majority of the substations are without power due to the lack of electricity flowing through Duke Energy transmission lines, Kornegay said.
As of this morning, electric service has been restored to Rosewood, Fremont, Dudley and Mar-Mac. Service should be restored to Seven Springs, Sarecta and Albertson today. Challenges remain in the Grantham, LaGrange, Warsaw and Kinston areas.
Nearly 23,000 Duke Energy customers lost power following the high winds and rain from Hurricane Matthew Saturday. Crews were able to restore electricity to 2,000 customers Sunday but another 5,000 customers were added to the list Monday, said Dave Scanzoni, Duke Energy spokesman.
The increase in power outages was primarily due to electric crews shutting off service in areas where other repairs were being made, Scanzoni said.
"What happens is we do repairs and we have to take customers off-line to make the repairs," Scanzoni said.
The Duke Energy power plant in Goldsboro, located near the Neuse River on Black Jack Church Road, is still in operation and providing service in the area, said Erin Culbert, Duke Energy spokesperson.
"At the H.F. Lee plan, we've got about 15 inches of rain," Culbert said. "The Neuse River has risen to the point that it's flooding our cooling ponds."
A Duke substation in the area flooded, which resulted in the loss of service to Tri-County EMC service lines, Culbert said. Efforts were made to reroute customers in an effort to restore power.
Duke Energy has employees stationed at the plant to consistently monitor operations and the rising water levels in the area.
"We're continuing to operate there, and we're online and providing electricity to customers," Culbert said.
Duke Energy customers could be without power as far out as Sunday, with restorations taking place throughout the week.
"We're estimating it's going to take until Sunday to get every customer online," Scanzoni said.