Recent Outages Information

Thursday, 15 September 2011 11:51

Since September 2 Craig-Botetourt has had more frequent outages than normal. On September 2 the counties of Botetourt, Craig and Roanoke were hit with a outbreak of strong and violent storms. These storms were quick in developing and caused a range of damage from torn down electrical lines to blown fuses.

After the storms hit around 2:30 pm our crews responded to help make sure that the lights were restored as quickly and safely as possible. One of the hardest hit areas was the Bradshaw/Elliston area of Roanoke County and continuing into Montgomery county. In that area we had two different pieces of line torn down by the trees off of the right of way. This is extremely frustrating not only for the member of the Cooperative but also for the Cooperative. The Cooperative last year maintained and cut the right of ways in this area and we continue to put as much effort and resources into the right of way management program as we have in the past. It just goes to show that even though we do our jobs there are still going to be times that the natural surroundings of the service territory is going to make it difficult to provide reliable electrical service.

As the weekend continued the Cooperative was watching the remnants of tropical depression Lee move into the area. Anytime we go through a period of such dry weather and have a sudden rash of rain and wind there is the potential that we will have outages. This is exactly what happened when Lee moved into the area during Labor day weekend. We had outages in Botetourt, Craig and Allegheny.

Then to top matters off, on September 9, Appalachian Power Company had a fault on their system that put the entire Craig-Botetourt service territory served by their transmission facilities in the dark. This also affected their service territory in Craig County and some surrounding areas. Once again this affected Craig, Botetourt, Roanoke and Montgomery counties. 

As the General Manager of Craig-Botetourt Electric Cooperative, I can tell you we really do not like for the lights to go out and it bothers me but it is going to happen from time to time. If it happens to you just know that we will get the lights back on as quickly and safely as possible. If you have questions about what happened or questions about anything else, please feel free to contact me at the office at 540.864.5121 extension 122 or on my cell phone at 540.580.9495.

Cooperatively,

Shawn C. Hildebrand