Contact: Priscilla Knight, 703-392-1580, pknight@novec.com
Nearly 90 Percent of Co-op Members Now have Electricity
NORTHERN VIRGINIA -- A thunder snow storm that cut through Northern Virginia on its way to New England left hundreds of commuters stranded and thousands of area consumers without electric power. Snow-laden trees falling on power lines knocked out service to approximately 30,000 Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative customers at the height of the storm on Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011. NOVEC has reduced the number of customers without power to approximately 16,000 as of 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 27.
NOVEC sent an airplane over the Co-op’s power distribution system on Thursday to provide an additional assessment of the tree damage. Allen Barbee, NOVEC vice president of electric systems operations, said this aerial view has helped the Co-op pinpoint outage locations.
Mike Curtis, vice president of Public Relations, says NOVEC’s System Operations Center monitored weather forecasts leading up to the storm and quickly implemented its emergency plan. Line technicians and tree crews collected gear and chainsaws, while other employees readied the fleet. He says NOVEC crews were in the field as soon as the first outages occurred.
“While we were quick to respond to those initial reports, the snarled traffic on the roads hampered our efforts to reach outage locations Wednesday night,” Curtis explains. “Today, we’ve made considerable progress. About 90 percent of our customers have power, and we’ll have crews in the field around the clock until all customers can turn on their lights.”
Curtis says crews from other electric cooperatives and contract crews from Virginia and other states are helping NOVEC get customers back online. “Electric cooperatives always assist each other when storms cause major outages,” Curtis explains. “In addition to their assistance, contract crews from as far away as Tennessee are helping. We expect to have the majority of our customers back online by Friday night, but service restoration will likely extend into the weekend.”
What to do if a Power Outage Occurs
- Call NOVEC at 703-335-0500, or 1-888-335-0500 and follow the prompts from the Interactive Voice Recognition system for the quickest response. The IVR system will report the outage to the System Operations Center immediately and crews will be assigned to the outage.
- Stay away from downed power lines and poles and the area around them. Assume they are energized. Storm debris, such as metal fences and bicycles, can hide a downed power line, which can energize anything that comes in contact with it. Notify NOVEC immediately.
- Use flashlights or lanterns instead of candles. If you use candles, watch them and keep them away from children and flammable household furnishings.
- Open freezers and refrigerators only when necessary.
- Use a portable generator, camp stove, or charcoal grill only outdoors to prevent creating deadly carbon monoxide fumes indoors.
