MURPHYSBORO, Ill. (WSIL) -- Egyptian Electric Cooperation is updating their members on their restoration efforts, bringing back 96% of their members online in the last 48 hours.
Egyptian Electric Cooperation is making significant progress on restoring power to their customers after Sunday's winter storm.
Power outages reached up to 6,600 members on Sunday at 4 p.m., due to the frozen precipitation and windy conditions. Roughly 48-hours later, crews restored power to nearly 6,000 members, knocking down the outage to 675 as of 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Egyptian Electric Cooperation has roughly a 2,000-mile system to maintain. The winter storm caused widespread damage, mainly due to broken poles and fallen trees from the weight of the ice and winds.
More than 25 poles were broken because of the storm. Crews have been out clearing hundreds of trees and limbs from power lines to help with the restoration efforts. The main area hit for Egyptian Electric Cooperation customers were south of Murphysboro, in the Pomona area. Outages were also prevalent in the Makanda area and also in the Marion area.
Linemen from Egyptian Electric Cooperation, along with forestry personnel and other contracted crews, immediately started with restoration efforts once the winter storm swept through and caused the outages.
“We’ve had 16 line and forestry crews working long hours in some really harsh conditions,� said Shane Hermetz, General Manager of Egyptian Electric Cooperative. “Much of the damage we’ve seen requires significant time and resources to restore, and in many cases pole climbing is necessary for repairs, which makes the work even more challenging for our linemen. Poor road conditions in the rural areas have also made this a real uphill battle, but our team is dedicated to restoring service as safely and as efficiently as possible and we won’t stop until all members are back on.�
Egyptian Electric Cooperation wants to remind their members they are actively working on restoring power to homes who have outages, even if you cannot see a lineman or a truck nearby. The electric company asks their members to remain patient as they continue to restore everyone's electric.
