The evening of Tuesday, January 9th, proved challenging when a major storm covering most of the East Coast blew through our service area after wreaking havoc with tornadoes further South and blizzards in the Midwest and Northwest. Most area schools, including Pitt County, called for a three-hour early release on Tuesday ahead of the storm and two-hour delay on Wednesday as a result of it. 

While many of us were tucked safely in our homes keeping an eye on tornado watches and warnings Tuesday evening, Station One and a Customer Relations storm team were fielding power outage calls and web chats throughout the evening while crews were being dispatched.  

The National Weather Service in Newport/Morehead reported sustained winds of 35 mph with gusts of 54 mph along with an inch and a half of rain in most of Eastern North Carolina. Luckily, no tornadoes were reported in Pitt County, but downed limbs and wind gusts contributed to most of the outages our customers experienced. 

More than a dozen Electric crews were called to respond to outages throughout the evening and into Wednesday morning. A total of 20 outages were reported with 9,833 customers having lost power due to the storm. 

The biggest problem for our crews was along Worthington Road near Winterville, where six poles were knocked down, interrupting power to two of our electric circuits and two substations. With a good portion of Worthington Road closed by the NC Department of Transportation, crews expected to work this particular outage until Noon on Wednesday. However, extra crews came in and had the poles replaced and all service restored to this area around 4:00am Wednesday. Many of those customers had power restored late Tuesday evening when power was re-routed from another circuit.  

To assist the three Dispatchers on duty that evening, Customer Relations fielded 147 calls and 158 webchats from 6:00 - 10:00pm. Station One sent out 5,719 initial outage text notifications throughout the storm.  

As a refresher, our text notification system was implemented in 2022 to inform customers about power outages around the clock. It includes an initial alert soon after the system indicates an outage, estimated restoration times with a link to the outage map, a follow-up alert when crews have arrived at the affected service area, and a final message indicating power has been restored.    

Customers also took to Facebook throughout the night and into Wednesday to thank our employees for their hard work. We have a few of these compliments listed below, and you can see a longer list on our Facebook page.  

Hats off to everyone who worked tirelessly through the night to ensure our customers had power restored quickly and safely!  

Thank You's

Steve Lee 
GUC to the rescue! 

Ann Harris 
Thanks for all you do; rain or shine, you all make the best team 

Kristi Simmons 
Thanks so much for getting us back up and running so quickly. Your hard work and bravery is appreciated. Stay safe 

Pam N Donnie Garris 
Thank you to all who worked through the night! Your hard work is very much appreciated. 

Meghann Boyd 
Terrific! Thank you for your dedication and commitment to your customers. 

Susie Allen Pittman 
Thanks GUC! 

Leslie Stamey Justesen 
Thank you! Power restored in 30 minutes. Be careful out there! 

Stacy B Gaskins 
You all are appreciated more than you know!! 

Elizabeth Dixon Martin 
Thank you to all the crews and their families !! 

Mark Garner 
Lets be careful out there! The folks that risk all in this weather to keep the power on are rock stars, but be safe. 

Madge Gay Dews Thompson 
Thank you for getting our electricity back on in Renston so quickly—twice!!! 

Bill Jacobs 
Thank you so much to all who work through awful conditions to serve our community! 

Katie Zimmer-fusco 
Thank you for all the hard work and for keeping social media updated. Prayers for the safety of all crews 

Melissa Jones Coward 
The real MVP's!! We were back on in an hour last night. Thank you!! 

Natalie Kelley 
Thank you for your hard & never-ending work! 

Hancock Peanut Company 
Rockstars! 

LeAnn Etheridge Taylor
Luckily my power never went out but thank you for all y’all do!!!! 

Tina Carter Cox