BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
Monday afternoon, the Glasgow Electric Plant Board announced that electrical power had been restored for all of its customers, but work continues to get that last several cable/Internet customers’ service restored.
Also by late afternoon, Farmers Rural Electric Cooperative Corp.’s outage viewer was showing about 3,000 member addresses in its multicounty service area without electrical power, compared with the 16,000 outages at the peak after Friday’s foul weather. Fewer than 1,000 of those appear to be in Barren County. By 8 p.m., the outages for FRECC’s total service area numbered 2,300 members, according to a press release.
The Glasgow Department of Public Works has already hauled 20 dumpster loads of trees and other plant debris from city parks, where residents of the entire county may deposit it at no cost, to the Glasgow Regional Landfill. The dumpsters are at Beaver Creek Park, in the fire tower parking lot; Gorin Park, on the end near the tennis courts; and Weldon Park where residents can dispose of tree debris only – because it will be composted — until 6 p.m. each day.
Glasgow EPB
“Glasgow EPB support and operations personnel have worked around the clock since hurricane-force winds swept through Barren County on Friday afternoon. Soon after the high winds arrived, power lines and poles began to fall. Whether it was from a tree falling or structural debris hitting electric equipment, damages were sustained to Glasgow’s electric and broadband grid all throughout Friday evening and into the early hours of Saturday morning. The fallout from this disastrous weather event is still being felt as our local utilities are still working to restore all affected services to those in Glasgow/Barren County,” a press release stated, continuing with the following:
“At the peak of the event, the Glasgow EPB had over 75 percent of its total service area (over 5,000 customers) without power or broadband service. Late Monday afternoon, GEPB operations staff announced virtually all restoration efforts were complete to its power grid. With that work being completed, efforts are now being focused on restoring the more than 600 cable and/or internet customers who are still without broadband service.
“The reasoning for these delays in broadband service restoration varies in the type of repairs needed. A large portion of these repairs involve the reconstruction of entire portions of hard-line coaxial cable that feeds GEPB’s broadband grid. Other areas of the broadband grid will require new fiberoptic cables to be spliced. Finally, some areas south of Glasgow’s city limits will be offline until power is restored by Farmers RECC to the broadband equipment feeding those customers.
“Due to the variety of repairs needed, GEPB operations personnel are expecting broadband service repairs to take place over the next two days before all GEPB broadband customers will see their services restored. The areas GEPB staff are acutely aware of still being without broadband services include: Glenview Drive, Simmental Lane, Hereford Lane, Longhorn Street, Shorthorn Street, Scottie Drive, New Salem Road, the odd side of Eastview Drive, Shamrock Place, McGrah Avenue, areas of Park Avenue, Adams Place, the odd side of Circle Spring Drive, part of Wedgewood Drive, the 500 block of Lexington Drive, Magnolia Drive, Maple Avenue, Lyon Avenue, Beverly Hills Drive, the beginning of and up to the 500 block of South Fork Road, the even side of Meadow Drive, South Fork Terrace, Pine Ridge Road, and the 3000 block of South Fork Road.
“For a full listing of all areas still in need of broadband service restoration, visit GlasgowEPB.com. For instant updates about outages in your area, GEPB customers can also sign up for GEPB Alerts via phone call, text message, and email at glasgowepb.com/alerts.”
Farmers RECC
The evening press release from Farmers said the member-owned cooperative has crews continuing with pole replacements, wire repairs and tree removals.
“The destruction from this storm was extensive and complex, impacting our entire service territory. We do not expect complete power restoration for several more days.
“In addition to Farmers RECC employees, more than 100 crew members from sister cooperatives and contracted crews are assisting with power restoration. They are Choctawhatchee Electric Cooperative – DeFuniak Springs, Florida; Escambia River Electric Cooperative – Jay, Florida;
Black River Electric Cooperative –Sumter, South Carolina; West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative – Mayfield,; Townsend Tree Service; A&G Tree Service; TreeKO; Great Southwestern Construction; and Davis H. Elliot Co.
FRECC continues to remind it’s members to avoid any contact with power lines.
“This includes tree or debris removal. As a reminder, always assume power lines are energized and any contact with them is extremely dangerous. Should you see any debris in contact with power lines, please report them to us at 270-651-2191.
“In order to allow our employees to focus solely on restoration efforts, our lobbies will be closed on Monday, March 6 and Tuesday, March 7. The drive-thru at our Glasgow office will remain open.
Some members may be questioning why their neighbor has power and they don’t. This could be for a number of reasons. Your home may be served by a different substation, line or transformer. Your line could also be damaged at your service line or service connection point. It is also important to check your panel box to make sure you don’t have any tripped circuit breakers.
“We have also received several questions from members who have received their daily usage readings, despite being without power during that time. Our metering system estimates a daily reading based on your location’s historic usage. If our meters do not receive a reading, they will automatically estimate. Once power is restored and we regain communications with the meter, it will reset to the actual reading.
“We will continue to share updates as we have them. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we restore electric service and peace of mind.”
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BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
The Glasgow Electric Plant Board has reported that it iwas down to 15 customers without power and 850 without cable/internet.
“We are working to have all power restored today and a large chunk of that 850 back online with broadband,” said Aaron Russell, director of Marketing and Communications for the EPB.
In a similar social media post, those numbers were translated to percentages.
“GEPB crews have restored power to over 99% of our service area. Around 13% of our broadband customers are still without cable/internet service.
“Once final repairs are made to the power grid, we will be completing all broadband repairs needed to restore service for those still offline. If you are still without a GEPB service (Power or Broadband) and you have not called to report it, please do so at (270) 651-8341.
“We appreciate the patience and support shown by our community during this time. We understand and relate to how frustrating this has been for so many.”
This screenshot of the Farmers Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. online outage viewer illustrates the major progress in power restoration over the weekend from the 16,000 members without electricity after Friday’s wind and storm damage.
As of 7 a.m. Monday, Farmers Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. was reporting the following:
“Right now, 4,400 members are still without power. That power is not completely restored is very frustrating. We won’t stop working until we bring the lights back on for every one of our members.
“This has been an historic storm with a historic response this cooperative hasn’t seen since 2009. Farmers RECC has 25 crews, consisting of 120 members of Farmers RECC and assisting crew personnel working on service restoration.
“In order to allow our employees to focus solely on restoration efforts, our lobbies will be closed on Monday, March 6 and Tuesday, March 7. The drive-thru at our Glasgow office will remain open.”
Meanwhile, as of Monday, the City of Glasgow has dumpsters set up at Beaver Creek Park, in the fire tower parking lot; Gorin Park, on the end near the tennis courts; and Weldon Park where residents can dispose of tree debris only — because it will be composted — free of charge until 6 p.m. each day.
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