Power was restored to the Chimney Rock Fire Department on Oct. 10 after Duke Energy crews tackled unprecedented obstacles within the area.
According to a Duke Energy news release,Duke Energy's first priority is to safely restore power as quickly and efficiently as possible, then move on to the next restoration to get another customer's power back on.
However, the news release said crews are having to address safety and environmental situations while restoring power at each site.
"In a normal storm situation, our crews would take the damaged poles and wires with them when leaving a repair, but nothing about Helene has been normal."
Shawn Calvert, a member of the Duke Energy Spindale crew, said he was a native of the area, living 10 to 15 minutes "down the road," and said the riverside, now "three times wider than it used to be," is not "really safe to even go in" as he and crews work around debris left by Helene to restore power to the area.
"It's a war zone," said Calvert. "Half of the town of Chimney Rock — there's five or six businesses up here that used to be there that are completely gone; the rest of the houses here are half-washed away."
Calvert said that when he and his crew were tasked with restoring power to the Chimney Rock Fire Department, they faced many environmental obstacles, making restoration difficult.
"We had several broken poles and a lot of wire down — we've got two of them changed — still trying to get one more up here in town, but we're running into a lot of rock," said Calvert. "Through the river here, there's just boulders and rocks everywhere, which that's a big obstacle that we've always run into here in the mountain region."
Duke Energy officials said the company is working with an outside company to come behind the line crews and separately remove downed poles and broken wires in the days ahead. Officials said, "That's the most efficient way to enable our restoration crews to remain fully focused on getting your power back on as rapidly as possible."
"The night before the storm, it was just raining— we were working outages several miles up the road," said Calvert. "We came through here Thursday night, and everything still looked normal — never would have thought the next morning, it would all be gone."
The release said the best way to report a non-outage circumstance like this is to contact their call center at 800.452.2777.
The release said staff members would then note the account and send someone to evaluate the scene and determine the next steps. Additionally, the release said that if Duke Energy crews inadvertently damaged the property rather than the storm itself, customers can submit a claim that can be evaluated.
STORY & PHOTO COURTESY OF ABC 13 WLOSDuke Energy crews tackle tough terrain to power up Chimney Rock after Helene (wlos.com)
