Duke Energy Progress is projecting most customers in New Hanover County will have power back on by midnight Saturday, though some homes could still be without until Sunday.
At a news conference Friday, John Elliott, director of Duke Energy East, said about 12,000 customers in New Hanover County, or 11 percent of its customer base there, remained without power as of Friday afternoon, though he said “the vast majority” of those customers should see power restored by Sunday.
“This is a major improvement from Wednesday afternoon, when we had about 50,000 customers out, or about 43 percent of our customers,” Elliott said. “We hope to restore power to the vast majority of our New Hanover County customers by midnight Saturday, though a few may go into Sunday morning.”
Elliott said the company is committed to restoring power for every customer. He said crews are assigned to each outage in the county and are steadily making progress, and he thanked customers for their patience as crews continue to make progress.
“Our crews are working just as quickly and safely as they can to restore power to all residents,” Elliott said. “No one at Duke Energy will go home or stop their storm response until every customer in New Hanover County has been restored.”
As of 3 p.m. Friday, less than 12,000 Duke Energy customers were without power in the tri-county area—an improvement from Wednesday, when more than 75,000 homes and businesses in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender went dark.
In Brunswick County, which is also served by Brunswick Electric Membership Cooperative, 218 BEMC customers were without power Friday afternoon, according to Scott Garner, the county’s deputy emergency manager. An estimated 20,000 customers of both utilities in Brunswick County had been without power Thursday morning, Garner said.
New Hanover County Chairman Woody White praised the company’s efforts as well as those of county staff and emergency responders, though he noted more work remains to be done.
“It could’ve been much worse. But to those who are still without power, it remains pretty bad,” White said, adding that the news conference was meant to assure residents that “help is here and is getting to you.”
White said commissioners intend to be debriefed by staff on the county’s storm response, as well as its preparation prior to the storm. That debriefing is to be held at one of the board’s agenda review meetings in March.
White said the debriefing would let the county know “where we got it right” and “whether there are areas of response we might could improve.”
“No weather event goes as planned, and even the best weather forecasters do not know exactly what will transpire until Mother Nature arrives in town. But the job of our emergency management responders is always to expect the worst and be prepared for it,” he said.
Asked if the effects of this week’s storm took the county off-guard, with iced-over tree limbs posing a safety hazard and causing massive power outages, White, who said he was without power until late yesterday, said the storm did not catch staff by surprise. “They’re prepared for this every day,” he said.
However, White added: “That’s why we’re going to go through this assessment in March. We got a lot of things right; if we didn’t get everything right, where can we improve if we get hit with a snow storm very soon or next year, or if this continues?
“We’re very well prepared for hurricanes; we’re very well prepared for winter events,” he said. “Can we be better prepared? That’s why we’re undertaking this press conference today and taking the initiative to ask all these questions in a controlled environment in March, when we have the benefit of a little more time and reflection to make sure that we’re making the right choices.”
CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO OF FRIDAY’S NEWS CONFERENCE
Additional reporting by Caroline Curran.
Jonathan Spiers is a reporter for Port City Daily. He can be reached at (910) 772-6313 or [email protected]. On Twitter: @jrspiers
