***BREC MEMBERS WITHOUT POWER DROPS TO 16 PERCENT***

PICKENS, South Carolina — Approximately 5,700 Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative members had their power restored Thursday, dropping the percentage without power down to 16 percent.

As of tonight, over 53,000 members have had their power restored since Tropical Storm Helene ripped through our region last Friday. At the time of this release, 11,878 members were without power. All 43 Spartanburg County members are now back online.

Further field assessments today confirmed 767 broken poles on our system. That figure was at 710 broken poles Wednesday night. This continues to be the most we’ve ever recorded in our 84-year history.

A BRIEF NOTE

In the final stages of restoration, the pace of progress will naturally slow down. Crews will begin focusing on more isolated outages, which take longer to address because they require more complex repairs or affect smaller numbers of members at a time. This might slow the overall speed of restoration, but we are working to mitigate that by bringing in additional crews to speed up the process.

Our goal is to ensure every member has power restored as safely and quickly as possible. We appreciate the continued patience and understanding as we work through these final, more challenging stages.

RESTORATION/OUTAGE UPDATE

Please see the attached restoration overview for specific areas from today.

Below are the members restored today by county:

Anderson: 922

Greenville: 1,470

Oconee: 1,709

Pickens: 1,505

Spartanburg: 43

Below are the remaining members without power by county:

Anderson: 752

Greenville: 1,636

Oconee: 3,536

Pickens: 5,719

— RILEY MORNINGSTAR | BLUE RIDGE ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE