SMECO: Power Restoration Is Underway

As of 8:00 p.m. Saturday evening, more than 1,300 St. Mary’s County households, including 28 in Lexington Park, Maryland remained without power after a powerful thunderstorm rolled through Southern Maryland Friday night.

Major restoration efforts are underway, according to Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative. At 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 30, the coop reported that it had approximately 61,745 customers without power, and had six transmission lines out. Transmission lines serve substations and must be in service in order for the feeders coming out of substations to be operational. At that time, 13 substations and 60 feeders were out.

As of noon Saturday, SMECO had about 35,100 customer-members without power. The most heavily affected area is Charles County with 23,500 customers without power. Approximately 4,500 customers in Calvert County, 3,700 in St. Mary’s County, and 3,400 in Prince George’s County are without power. More than 1,000 outage incidents have been reported. An incident is a damage event which can range from a blown transformer to a tree on a line or a broken pole. As of noon, 8 feeders were down.

All crews are working along with contract crews from Pike, Penn Line and C.W. Wright. Additional contract crews will arrive Sunday morning. Some customers may not have power restored until Monday.

SMECO’s outage restoration policy is to make repairs that will restore service to the most people in the least amount of time. Transmission lines and substations are repaired first, followed by distribution lines that feed neighborhoods. Tap lines and individual service lines are then repaired to restore power to customers who may still be without electricity.

Customers without power should call SMECO’s Outage Hotline at 1-877-74-SMECO or 1-877-747-6326. Customers are reminded to use generators outdoors, use gas and charcoal grills outdoors, and use flashlights instead of candles.

Source: SMECO