Weather giving some breaks for VEC members, but trouble areas remain

Trees compromised by ice and snow continue to cause outages for Vermont Electric Cooperative members. VEC began the day with about 200 members affected by outages, but those numbers climbed back up to 1300 by early morning as trees continued to fall. In many parts of VEC service territory, warmer temperatures melted ice that had plagued the electric system since the ice storm hit Vermont last Sunday. However, cold pockets remain, where last week’s accumulated ice and snow continue to pull down lines and trees. These areas stretch from Underhill north to Berkshire.’
Large trees falling from outside VEC’s right-of-way have pulled down lines, in many cases right after the line had been restored. In addition, ice accumulation on lines and equipment has created persistent outage challenges. For example, when ice unloads from lines, they tend to snap together, which blows a fuse that crews then must come out to repair.
Despite these challenges, crews are currently assigned to every line section outage. In addition to crews from throughout Vermont, VEC has continued to cycle in crews from out of state to refresh exhausted line workers who have been working long hours since early last Sunday. The exceptional conditions of this ice storm have required unprecedented resources.’ Line crews and tree crews’ have tackled thousands of outages every day for the past week.
‘This has been an extremely challenging storm for us,’ said Liz Gamache, VEC spokesperson. ‘We are grateful for all the support from the community as we continue to fight this battle against difficult weather conditions. Many of the out-of-state crews have commented on how much they appreciate the support and encouragement of VEC members. We are also receiving messages from their families who are grateful that Vermonters are supporting their loved ones over the Christmas holiday.’
VEC is concerned about the snow forecasted for tonight into’ tomorrow. Franklin County, which was extremely hard hit by the ice storm, may be spared significant snow accumulation. However, even a small amount of wet snow could cause significant setbacks.
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VEC will be initiating some outages’ during the next several days. They will be relatively short in duration and will give crews a chance to safely’ make repairs to power lines that were damaged earlier during the ice storm.’ This is important work to help prevent future outages.
Since the ice storm began last weekend, VEC has restored more than 48,000 outages.
For more information and estimated restoration times, VEC members are encouraged to visit VEC’s website at’ www.vermontelectric.coop/outage or call 800-832-2667’ to speak with a member service representative’