TAYLORSVILLE – As of 9 a.m. Thursday, Southern Pine reports that there are currently 1,320 members still experiencing outage caused by the two tornados. Remaining outages by county are Covington – 642, Forrest – 2, Jasper – 334, Jeff Davis – 242, Jones – 34, Newton – 66, and Smith – 1.
There has been substantial progress made with our restoration efforts and crews continue working to restore service to all members. We estimate that there were around 15,000 meters without power during the peak of the outage. With an estimated 500 or more poles down or broken, and miles and miles of lines down, the damage to our system was tremendous. Our linemen are essentially having to completely rebuild the delivery system through these areas.
Southern Pine Electric asks for everyone’s cooperation in following these safety guidelines:
• Follow social distancing guidelines and please stay at least six feet away from linemen and other workers; COVID-19 does not stop for tornados, so be diligent in taking precautions.
• Do not stack debris on top of downed power lines during clean up as this will delay restoration.
• When driving past SPE linemen or other workers, use extreme caution and reduce speed.
• Do not go near downed power lines.
• Refrain from sightseeing during this time.
