MONCKS CORNER, S.C. – Santee Cooper personnel are prepared for the anticipated effects that Hurricane Dorian may have on Santee Cooper’s service territory, according to Santee Cooper spokesperson Mollie Gore.
Approximately 2 million South Carolinians utilize Santee Cooper as their power source, either directly or through the state’s electric cooperatives and other wholesale customers.
As of 4 p.m. today, Santee Cooper moved to OpCon 2 alert status. This means a threat to Santee Cooper’s electric system is imminent or has occurred, but effects are limited or still uncertain.
Santee Cooper’s own transmission and distribution crews are ready, and we are lining up support from dozens of other public power crews from the Southeast to help with power restoration as needed. At this point, more than 800 people will be available to help repair damage to the transmission and distribution systems, and additional contract crews may be added in the next day or two. Approximately 500 additional employees are preparing and will be working at Santee Cooper’s generating stations during the storm and afterwards to keep the stations operating and handle repairs if needed.
Three helicopters were out Tuesday performing maintenance work, and these helicopters will be available to patrol the lines and quickly identify damage as soon as they can safely fly once Dorian passes through, Gore stated.
Santee Cooper’s call center will be staffed 24 hours a day during and for a period of time after the storm.
“Santee Cooper will make every effort to keep electricity flowing to our 185,000 residential and commercial customers in Berkeley, Georgetown and Horry counties and our wholesale and industrial customers across the state,” said President and CEO Mark Bonsall. “Our equipment is lined up, our vehicles are ready and we are finalizing details to be sure we can respond to outages as soon as we safely can.”
Customers can report outages at 1-888-769-7688 or www.santeecooper.com/stormcenter.
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