(WGHP) — Duke Energy is watching the weather and getting ready to take action in case the weekend wintry weather brings power outages.
Jeff Brooks, spokesperson for Duke Energy, said the big question for them is whether this turns out to be primarily a snow or ice event.
“If we’re seeing snow accumulation more in the three-to-five-inch range, it’s probably not going to result in a lot of outages simply because it takes about six inches or more of snow before those tree limbs become weighed down enough to create the outages that we typically see,” Brooks said.
However, even a 1/4 inch of ice can bring down tree limbs, which can damage powerlines, he said. Duke Energy works to trim trees throughout the year to mitigate the risk, but they cannot eliminate the risk.
As of Friday, Brooks says Duke Energy has several hundred line and tree workers in the Triad and thousands of workers across the state. Crews will be staying local for the time being.
“What’ll happen is, as we see those outage pockets develop, [crews will] deploy out to do their work as we start to see we need more resources,” Brooks said. “… We can reposition those within just a couple hours in a lot of cases. There are crews that have already been designated to travel in the event that that is necessary. And we’ve also got crews down along the coast that are probably not going to see an impact, and those can be moved into some of the hard-hit areas as needed to be able to assist.”
Duke Energy may be able to prevent some outages thanks to the “self-healing technology” the company has installed throughout the Triad.
“That is a powerful tool that helps our crews in the field be able to automatically reroute power to get customers back up a little bit faster,” Brooks said. And that’ll be another tool in the toolbox that you see used by our crews over the next day.”
Duke Energy encourages all customers to ensure they are prepared for potential outages.
“If you rely on electricity for medical needs, it’s particularly important that you have a plan for where you would go or what you would do if you lost power for several hours, remembering that in a winter storm road, conditions aren’t always that friendly for driving,” Brooks said.
If you lose power, Duke Energy asks that you report the outage. Outages can be reported on the Duke Energy app or website. They can also be reported by texting the word OUT to 57801 or calling 1-800-POWER.
“The reason we want you to report the outage is that it allows us to create a connection with you and your meter and then we know as we’re restoring power that we can verify that everybody’s been restored, so that’s an important part of the process,” Brooks said.
Here are a few more tips from Duke Energy:
- If you can, stay home.
- If you must go out and you come across a utility crew or an emergency crew, move over and slow down to give crews space to work.
- If you do encounter a downed power line, always assume that that power line has power on it. Stay back and report it to Duke Energy so they can assign crews to fix it as quickly as possible.
- If you are going to use a generator, make sure you’re using it the way the manufacturer intended and in a well-ventilated area.
