Addendum: Via Zero Hedge, we learn that Duke Energy announced 370 electrical substations were down.
Restoring electric service is obviously a major part of recovering from a natural disaster like Hurricane Helene. The new wrinkle western NC faces is the fact that the destruction of so many roads complicates the recovery to a major extent. And of course, we don’t know what the ultimate death counts will be.
Duke Energy has sent some signals about the task it faces:
Duke Energy workers are navigating unprecedented destruction and challenging conditions in the Upstate South Carolina and western North Carolina communities devastated by Helene…
A large amount of our work entails a significant repair or complete rebuild of the electricity infrastructure that powers this region and will support its recovery.
Conservative media has reported is that there is a limited supply of new electrical equipment Duke Energy would need to use to make these repairs because much of it has been sent to Ukraine to rebuild there. If that is true, there may be even further delays in getting electricity restored.
And we all know how long roadbuilding takes.
I wonder how many of the people in the region are going to relocate and move elsewhere. This is hard to do, however, when you have lost everything.
This a calamity of biblical promotions. Gods speed to those power company lineman.
Some of them are getting injured doing what they need to do, Fred. It’s quite a mess out there.