(WSPA) – Efforts to restore power to more than 1 million people who lost service during Tropical Storm Helene are continuing on Sunday.
Work crews were back out Sunday morning removing trees and repairing damaged power lines and transmission stations.
Efforts to get public infrastructure back to normal have been exhaustive across the Upstate and Western North Carolina.
According to the Gaffney Board of Public Works, crews were able to able to resolve a water outage in Blacksburg after 36 hours of work. The board said there are still isolated outages on Gaffney Ferry Road and Pumping Station Road, which should be resolved sometime Sunday.
Greer Public Works said it was able to meet a goal of restoring backbone feeders on Saturday, which has allowed and so far more roughly 17,000 people have had their power turned back on. Crews will be back out Sunday morning continuing to work on areas without power.
Broad River Electric said on Sunday it managed to restore power to 700 more people overnight, but 17,000 are still waiting to get power back. More than 100 additional workers arrived to the area Saturday night to bolster restoration efforts.
The cooperate said 150 poles have been confirmed to be damaged by the storm, and the number is expected to rise as crews continue to do assessments. Eight substations are also still without power, and Broad River Electric is waiting on Duke Energy to get them back online, at which point many customers will likely see power restored.
Laurens Electrical Cooperative said crews worked through the night Saturday replacing poles and transformers and cutting trees off of power lines. The cooperative said another substation was also brought back online last night, giving the cooperative power from 12 of its 34 substations.
Despite the progress, and more work crews coming from Florida, Ohio and Arkansas arriving to help tackle the work, Laurens Electrical said there is still no estimated time table for full service restoration. Crews will be required to rebuild much of the cooperatives infrastructure before people start to see power returned, and it could be next week before some homes have power again.
Hart Electrical Membership Corporation said as of 8:30 a.m. Sunday about 4,916 people were still without power, a notable drop from the 24,000 people who lost power on Friday. Crews were back to work Sunday morning replacing more than 60 broken poles and attempting to restore power to those still affected by storm damage.
Duke Energy said on Saturday nearly all customers outside of the westernmost parts of the Carolinas should expect to have power restored sometime Sunday. The company said on Saturday most outages should be resolved before 11:59 p.m. today.
Debris cleanup begins
State and local agencies have begun announcing plans to help clean and remove debris caused by Tropical Storm Helene.
Spartanburg County has partnered with DRC Emergency Services which will begin removing storm debris this week. Residents are asked to place any vegetative debris within the right-of-way away from mailboxes and utilities for pickup.
The county said residents should not place material in black bags, as crews cannot collect any bagged materials.
South Carolina Emergency Management Division has established a cleanup hotline. Anyone who needs help cleaning storm damage can call 844-965-1386 to request assistance.
Volunteers with the hotline can help with mucking out, tree cleanup, taring roof and cleaning storm debris.
Road safety
Motorists are encouraged not to travel except in an emergency situation. Many roads are still lined with downed trees or power lines.
Greenville County reported road washouts at Chick Springs Road and Mountain Creek Church Road on Sunday.
If you must go out, police departments are reminding drivers intersections without working stop lights are to be treated as four-way stops.
