PRESS RELEASE
Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) crews are working throughout the day 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.
With colder temperatures and high winds expected for Wednesday evening, SMECO was prepared for additional damage to be caused to the electric system.
Damage from the winter storm is concentrated in the Charles-Prince George’s region, where more than 3,500 customers were without power as of noon, Thursday, February 15. At that hour, approximately 450 customers in Calvert County were also without power. All storm-related outages in St. Mary’s County have had electric service restored.
With nearly 22,000 customers affected by the storm, SMECO has restored power to more than 18,000 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.
SMECO president and chief executive officer, Joe Slater, commented, “we want to extend our appreciation to the Co-op’s customer-members for their patience while crews work to restore service.”
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.