Our area was hit hard Thursday night by another round of severe storms which toppled trees and power lines and blocked roads and highways. Customers in the West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative, Paris Board of Public Utilities and Gibson Electric were without power for long stretches of time in widespread outages.
Crews restored service to about 5,000 West Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative members overnight after a severe thunderstorm tore down power lines and snapped several poles across their four-county service area.
As of 7 a.m. this morning, crews had restored power to 5,500 members, with 1,336 still without service. “We have restored most of the larger outages and expect to complete repairs on our system today,” said CEO David Smart.
Smart added that it may be late afternoon before crews reach individual home service lines. Homeowners are also reminded that if the electrical service entry point on your home is damaged, it must be repaired and inspected before service can be reconnected.
Crews report most of the damage they are seeing is due to fallen trees and limbs that brought down power lines as they fell.
Smart expressed his appreciation to lineworkers and support staff for their dedication to safely getting the lights back on. “We have a great team and they are at their best when conditions are tough,” he said.
In Henry County, BPU crews worked through the night to restore power to customers who experienced outages. Numerous customers were without power for over two hours late last night.
As of 8 a.m. today, around 300 BPU customers remain without power at a dozen or so different locations, according to BPU General Manager Terry Wimberley. Most outages have been caused by falling trees. Full restoration of power is expected by late morning.
Wimberley said, “There will be a few customers without electricity until they have an electrician repair the service riser on the house. Crews will hook those services up throughout the day as we are notified they are ready.”
At Gibson Electric, crews also worked through the night, but as of 8 a.m. today, only six customers remained without power.
Gibson Electric said, “We will get power restored to everyone as soon as we safely can. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate our employees’ hard work.
Tonight’s severe storms have caused 22 outage locations affecting 1,018 members.”
Photo: Nikki Bobo took this photo of the heavy rainfall outside of Fletcher Dental on N. Poplar St. in Paris last night.
