Damage on Elm Street at Crystal Beach. Photo courtesy of Wayne Brackin.
Nearly 14,600 of Tideland’s 22,600 members experienced power outages related to Hurricane Isaias. Tideland EMC crews, along with personnel from Virginia, Georgia and western North Carolina, fully restored power less than 48 hours after the first storm outage began.
Tornado damage in Bath. Photo courtesy of Heidi Smith.
Hurricane Isaias resulted in power outages for 14,569 Tideland members and all were confined to the mainland. The first large outage occured on the Arapahoe circuit at 11:58 pm, the night of August 3. Less than 48 hours later, power had been fully restored to members in all six counties of the co-op’s service territory.
The two hardest hit areas were Crystal Beach and Bayview where tornadoes did considerable damage to both poles and wire.
To respond to the storm, Tideland more than tripled its outside work force. Our 30 linemen were joined by 75 additional tree trimmers and line construction crews. The visiting crews were here from Virginia, Georgia and other parts of North Carolina.
By the end of the first day of work, power had been restored to 90% of those impacted. Crews completed restoration to the final 1,368 members by 8:00 pm on Wednesday, August 5.
Photo courtesy of Heidi Smith.
Tideland system damages included 22 broken poles and 37 damaged transformers. The estimated cost of our total storm response is $550,000.
The co-op has been working hard to update and further segment our outage text messaging database. Previously, all members were grouped according to substation. By the time you receive this magazine we should have all of our member cell phone numbers grouped by circuit and test messages sent to each group. Several months ago we also created a substation and circuit map library on our website. There’s a link to the library on our home page. You may find it helpful to take a look at the circuit map applicable to your home or business.
The Thursday after Hurricane Isaias made landfall, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration updated its 2020 hurricane season outlook. The new guidance suggests more hurricanes that are both stronger and longer-lived. If their forecast proves correct, 2020 would have the second most number of storms trailing only 2005 which had 27 named storms.
We were fortunate that rain and flooding during Hurricane Isaias were minimal. Neverthess, please continue to be storm ready as we remain in peak hurricane season.
