CHELCO evening update for Hurricane Michael - day three

DEFUNIAK SPRINGS, Fla., October 12, 2018 – At approximately 6 p.m. local, 1,300 CHELCO members entered their third day without power. Crews will continue to work through the weekend to restore them. CHELCO’s call center and social media sites will also be available for member support. Because of the complexity of energy restoration, CHELCO cannot estimate when individual homes and businesses will have electric service, but most members who are able to receive power should have service by sometime Saturday.

“We are deeply committed to restoring power to our members who have been without it since the storm,” said CHELCO CEO Steve Rhodes. “Our crews are working as safely and quickly as possible. I know that is little comfort to those in the dark but I assure you we are doing all that we can.”

Today multiple crews repaired damage to the system in the areas serviced by the following substations: Black Creek, Red Bay, Eastern Lake, Grayton, Freeport, Hammock Bay, Point Washington and Alaqua. 

Damage included broken poles, lines and extensive trees and limbs on lines. Crews must clear the lines prior to addressing damage which adds to restoration times. Debris clearing and restoration work will continue throughout the service area.

At the height of the storm, CHELCO reported 21,000 member-accounts without service due to Hurricane Michael.

Restoration efforts began Wednesday once conditions were no longer extremely hazardous. Crews worked throughout the night and were augmented with over 70 line workers from sister cooperatives and contractors. The cooperative crews were from Pearl River Valley Electric Power Association and Coast Electric both from southern Mississippi.

Outages can be monitored on CHELCO’s outage map. A link is available at CHELCO.com.

CHELCO encourages members to call in their outages to keep the system updated current. Outages can be reported through the CHELCO Connect app or online at CHELCO.com.

All of CHELCO offices will resume normal business hours on Monday, Oct. 15. The Santa Rosa Beach Office was closed Thursday and Friday due to disruptions in internet and phone services.

CHELCO is a not-for-profit electric distribution cooperative serving more than 52,000 accounts in Walton, Okaloosa, Holmes and Santa Rosa counties.