PRESS RELEASE
 Journeyman lineman Jeff Spalding trims branches on a power line at a home near Waldorf. |
Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) crews are working throughout the day and into the night to restore service to all customer-members who are without power as a result of Wednesday’s storm. According to local weather reports, some areas of Southern Maryland were blanketed with as much as ¾ of an inch of ice which brought down trees and power lines.
Damage from the winter storm is concentrated in the Charles-Prince George’s region, where more than 2,400 customers were without power as of 4 p.m., Thursday, February 15. At that hour, approximately 120 customers in Calvert County were also without power. All storm-related outages in St. Mary’s County have had electric service restored.
SMECO president and chief executive officer, Joe Slater, commented, “we want to extend our appreciation to our customer-members for their patience while crews work to restore service.” Slater added, “crews are working diligently to restore power to as many people as possible tonight. We are at the point where it may take several hours to restore service to a handful of homes, especially in heavily wooded areas. But crews are doing their best to accomplish our goal.” In one area of Brandywine, several spans of power line were taken down by two trees; several hours of work will be required to restore power to the families who are served by that line.
With nearly 22,000 customers affected by the storm, SMECO has restored power to nearly 19,500 customer-members. All available SMECO personnel and resources have been focused on restoring power in as quickly and safely a manner as possible. SMECO crews began making repairs early Wednesday morning, and additional crews were called in to assist. Ten crews of 65 crew members were called in from Pike Electrical contractors in North Carolina. An additional seven crews of 20 people from co-ops on the eastern shore and Delaware, who have also assisted with power restoration, bring the total to nearly 300 workers on site.
To report outages and downed power lines, customers may call 1-888-440-3311 or 1-877-747-6326. Customers may obtain updates from the Co-op’s website at www.smeco.coop.