The two weeks consumed by Hurricane Helene this fall were unlike any other in my 40-year career at Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative. I think many who have lived in the Upstate their entire lives will echo that feeling. I know our employees believe as much.

Helene brought historic damage to our service territory. Her wrath spared few. Not only here but across South Carolina and to our neighbors up north. We brought in a record number of outside personnel to help us rebuild, which peaked at over 800 total in the field and represented over a dozen states. Our offices in Oconee and Pickens resembled pop-up military base camps for line crews to take brief rests and eat hot meals.

I wanted to provide you with a brief recap of how we responded to this historic storm. Helene's most problematic aspects came in two waves.

The rain that preceded Helene's arrival on Friday, September 27, saturated the ground, making trees more vulnerable to falling over. The rain served as the fuse, and the wind gusts lit the match to the dynamite. Meteorological records indicate wind gusts peaked at 70 mph, causing trees to collapse and breaking over 950 poles. That is almost 700 more broken poles than ever recorded in Blue Ridge's 84-year history in a natural disaster situation.

At one point that morning, 90 percent of our members were without service. A majority had service returned three days later. Transmission lines operated by Duke Energy sustained catastrophic damage that morning, preventing 13 of our substations from being energized. Thanks to their work, we eventually brought these substations online, which feed into the homes and businesses of our communities. Steady progress was made daily as we moved into more remote service territories to smaller clusters of outages. Rocky Bottom was hit particularly hard, and we had to rebuild 2.5 miles of our system in mountainous terrain.

Amid extreme stress and inconvenience, our members were patient and appreciative. They thanked our crews as they worked in the field. Churches dropped off goodies and thank you cards to uplift us. We have never taken our membership for granted, and we never will.

I am proud of the way our entire cooperative responded. We help internal meetings the week before Helene's arrival, and crews were pre-staged for response. I can confidently say that every department met the moment. Our warehouse crews unloaded deliveries around the clock. Member service representatives answered calls at every hour of the day to keep our members informed about the damage we were uncovering in the field. Engineers, dispatchers and line communicated efficiently to keep all safe.

Our community is resilient.

I would like to close by personally thanking all members for their continued patience and understanding, and all employees and outside aid for their diligence, long hours and hard work.

Best regards,

Jim Lovinggood

CEO and President, Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative