Winter Storm Ulysses: North Carolina Power Outages Could Last Until Wednesday

March 9,2014

 

 

 

About 78,000 customers remain without power in North Carolina Sunday, and utility companies say it could be days before power is restored. The outages come in the wake of Winter Storm Ulysses, which brought snow and substantial ice to parts of the Southeast and mid-Atlantic, particularly North Carolina, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands and leaving road conditions messy.
Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency for North Carolina, where at least 65,000 Duke Energy utility customers were still without power Sunday night.  Most of those were in Alamance County, where almost 40,000 customers didn't have electricity, and Randolph, where more than 13,000 were without power. Orange County had more than 6,500 Duke Energy customers without power.
The company estimates that power will be restored in those three counties by 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.
About 12,000 customers who get their power from North Carolina electric cooperatives were in the dark Sunday, while EnergyUnited reported fewer than 1,00 outages, most of them in Davidson County.

Ulysses top snow and ice reports.

In a press release Saturday, Duke Energy outlined its plan to tackle the outages, explaining why power in some counties might not be restored until Wednesday.
"This storm has caused extensive damage, and we appreciate our customers’ continued patience,” Jeff Corbett, senior vice president of Duke Energy's Carolinas Delivery Operations said in the press release. “Our crews are working as quickly and safely as possible to get the lights on for customers and will not stop until the last customer is restored.”
The utility provider said that it had deployed more than 4,000 line and tree personnel to tackle the expansive outages in the hardest hit counties. The timeline provided by Duke Energy said that outages in Alamance, Caswell, Davidson, Guilford and Randolph counties could last until 11 p.m. Wednesday. Outages in Chatham, Davie and Forsyth counties could last until Tuesday at 11 p.m., the utility provider said.
(MORE: The Snowiest Cities of Winter 2013-14)
Below are the latest photos and reports from the storm.