SMECO Crews Tackled Outages After Weekend Storm

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative crews worked throughout the night on Saturday, July 29, to restore electric service to members who were affected by power outages from severe weather.

“Last evening a line of severe thunderstorms caused significant damage to SMECO’s system. We lost multiple transmission lines, substations, and distribution feeder lines causing nearly 30,000 outages throughout our service territory,” Tom Dennison, SMECO spokesman, said on Sunday.

SMECO’s line crews, along with AUI Power and Penn Line contractor crews, worked to restore power in areas affected by outages. Additional crews from Delaware Electric Cooperative and Prince George’s Electric Cooperative arrived Sunday to assist with restoration efforts.

In accordance with SMECO’s power restoration policy to make repairs that will restore service to the most people in the least amount of time, crews work to make sure transmission lines, substation feeders, and major distribution lines are cleared of downed trees and limbs and are operational before making repairs to tap lines and individual service lines.

Dennison added, “Crews made significant progress overnight. As of 5:30am July 30, all transmission lines and all but one substation had been restored. Work will continue throughout the day and tonight as crews repair multiple broken poles caused by extensive tree damage during the storm. We expect all storm-related outages to be resolved by midnight on July 30, 2023.”

As of 10am Sunday, SMECO’s outage map showed less than 4,500 customers without power and 289 incidents.

Anyone can view the status of SMECO power outages, find helpful information, or report an outage on the co-op’s outage map here.