March 31, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
Two days after a severe thunderstorm disrupted service for thousands of Caney Fork Electric Cooperative members in three counties, crews are still working to restore power to households affected by the outage.
“While we had a productive day Monday restoring power to our members following the severe storms on Sunday, March 29th, we found that there was no possibility of being able to get the lights back on for all of our members before we finished working Monday night between 8-9:00 p.m. In my 35 years at CFEC, this weather event has resulted in more broken poles at one time (between 75-80) than any other storm we have ever encountered,” said CFEC General Manager Bill Rogers.
“The hardest hit areas were in Northwest and Northern Warren County; Southern DeKalb County and Southern White County. At this time, we still have approximately 3,000-4,000 of our members still without power,” said Rogers.
“We are grateful for the assistance of four local power companies, four right of way contractors and two line contractors; without their help, we would not have made nearly the progress Monday that we were able to accomplish”.
“After a night’s rest, we will be back on the job at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 31st to continue our efforts to repair the extensive damage to our system. We beg for and appreciate the patience of our members as we work to restore your power; please know that nothing is more important to us than our responsibility to you and we will do everything we possibly can to get your lights back on as quickly and safely as we can,” added Rogers.