How Lowcountry electric companies are preparing for severe weather

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Another round of thunderstorms are on tap for Friday.

Electric companies that serve the tri-county say they’re already prepared for severe weather possibilities on Friday — just days after a storm brought high winds and caused a significant number of outages to much of the area.

Officials at both Dominion Energy and Berkeley Electric Co-op say their teams are preparing for storms and outages year-round so they’re ready for weeks like this where we see multiple storms within a few days.

Behind the gates of the North Charleston Dominion Energy headquarters, following Tuesday’s storm, there sat rows of electrical supplies and equipment on standby ready to help with any outages.

Officials say their crews worked throughout the night on Tuesday to get the lights back on for those impacted. Dominion Energy shared their numbers from Tuesday, at the height of the storm they say roughly 51,000 were without power; by 10 am Wednesday they reported 99% of their customers had power back.

Officials say the safety of their crews and customers is the top priority, urging folks to avoid and report any downed powerlines.

“Always stay away from downed power lines, always assume that that downed line is energized, and certainly report that to us,” said Paul Fischer, spokesman for Dominion Energy.

Experts report the number one reason for power outages across the system: trees and tree limbs.

While crews are making sure they always have enough supplies. Dominion Energy spokesperson Paul Fischer says their team is preventing the problem before it happens.

“A proactive vegetation management program, making sure we have the clearances we need around those overhead energize lines, really year-round,” he said. “That allows us to not only reduce the amount of outages we might see during severe weather but also to increase the ability for us to respond quickly to get that power back on,” said Fischer.

Experts also say another possibility for outages with colder temperatures is ice storms, as that can cause tree limbs to fall on power lines, which is another reason why they say year-round preparation is so important.