BrightRidge continues storm Helene recovery efforts Saturday

JOHNSON CITY — BrightRidge electric system outages are down to around 7,000 customers at 3:15 p.m. Saturday, with all available crews deployed. At least two additional contract crews are enroute, but serious damage is widespread throughout our region as well as Western Carolina.

As noted in our last update, restoration of all accessible customers will stretch into next week. BrightRidge has numerous three-phase line spans down and many broken poles to replace.

Power has been restored to all substations, including most breakers at Phipps Substation on Bailey Bridge Road, while work also continues to clear distribution lines to neighborhoods throughout the service area

Smaller outages, while frustrating, are slower to restore due to the priority of restoring distribution lines. This process returns power faster to the largest number of customers.

In the southern portion of Washington County, there remain numerous areas BrightRidge still cannot access at all, with bridges either destroyed in the record-setting flood or rendered unusable until inspected. State of Tennessee inspectors are on location to begin inspections of those bridges that remain in place once they are cleared of debris.

 Service restoration is our priority, but we must also focus on the safety of our in-house and contractor employees. Customer patience is greatly appreciated. The wrath that Tropical Storm Helene vented on our region is truly historic

For the latest information on outages, visit BrightRidge.com and click on the Outage Map.