UPDATE – As of 2:30 p.m. Friday, January 7, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) has nearly all of its crews and contractors working in the Nanjemoy, Grayton, and Indian Head areas of Charles County.

According to SMECO spokesperson Tom Dennison, “We had restored electric service to everyone in Calvert, Prince George’s, and St. Mary’s counties, but we are now experiencing additional outages caused by high winds. In the Nanjemoy area of Charles County, crews are making repairs span by span because of the many downed trees in the area caused by Monday’s snowfall.”

Dennison added, “I have talked to linemen who have worked outages for more than 30 years who have said they’ve never seen as much devastation as we experienced in the Nanjemoy area this week. We have less than 300 outages remaining, and we expect to make steady progress throughout the rest of the day so we can have everyone’s power restored tonight.”

Sonja M. Cox, SMECO president and CEO, said, “Our employees and our contract crews have worked tirelessly this week to make repairs, and I appreciate everyone’s hard work. We also appreciate the patience exhibited by our members who were without power following the snowstorm. We know how important it is for everyone to have electric service, and in extraordinary circumstances such as these, it’s good to see that we can all pull together.”

UPDATE: As of 9 p.m. Thursday, January 6, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) has substantially completed power restoration in Calvert, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s counties. Remaining outages in Charles County are expected to be addressed by Friday evening.

Tom Dennison, SMECO spokesperson, said, “We are winding down and restoring service to the remaining customers who are without power. The outages that began on Monday have been addressed in Calvert, Prince George’s, and St. Mary’s counties along with some additional outages that have occurred since then. At the peak, we had more than 1,000 outage incidents on Monday. This evening and tomorrow, we will be working on the remaining 72 incidents to restore service to the 850 customers without power.”

An outage incident can be an open switch that affects two homes, a tree on a line that affects 100 homes, or a downed feeder that affects 1,000 homes. Dennison continued, “We have dozens of crews working in Nanjemoy, which was particularly hard-hit. Crews are making repairs span by span because of the many trees in the area. In addition, we are under a winter weather advisory for tonight, and we are prepared to respond to additional outages if snow accumulates overnight.”

SMECO’s outage map will show an incident-specific ETR once a crew determines how long the repair will take. The status of SMECO’s power outages, helpful information, and outage reporting link are available at smeco.coop/outage.

UPDATE – 1/6/2022 – As of 12:15 p.m. Thursday, January 6, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) has about 1,626 members without electric service following Monday’s snow storm.

Tom Dennison, SMECO spokesperson, said, “At the peak, we had more than 1,000 outage incidents on Monday. This morning, we have whittled that number down to 212. An outage incident can be an open switch that affects two homes, a tree on a line that affects 100 homes, or a downed feeder that affects 1,000 homes. With 1,626 customers out and 212 incidents remaining, you can easily determine that for every repair that needs to be made, on average, only a few customers will have service restored.”

Dennison continued, “Normally, when we get to this point after a storm, the most difficult and least accessible areas need to be addressed. In some cases we may need to replace a pole, which takes several hours, or we may need to make repairs on a line that is not near a paved road. We are working to make as many repairs by tonight as possible. SMECO’s outage map will show an incident-specific ETR once a crew determines how long the repair will take.”

The status of SMECO’s power outages, helpful information, and outage reporting link are available at smeco.coop/outage.

UPDATE – 1/5/2022 – As of 8 p.m. Wednesday, January 5, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) has about 2,468 members without electric service following the storm that hit the area on Monday.

SMECO spokesperson, Tom Dennison, said, “Our SMECO crews and our contractor crews are working to restore electric service to the remaining areas without power. We have about 298 outages in St. Mary’s County and 509 outages in Calvert County. In Charles and Prince George’s counties we have a total of about 1,661 outages.

Some of these customers will have power restored tonight, while others will be addressed Thursday.” Dennison added, “We always stress the importance of safety, but when our personnel have been working long days in cold weather, working safely is paramount. Although line crews work in dangerous conditions and their jobs are physically and mentally demanding, we know how important it is for our members to have their electric service restored. We are in the home stretch and expect that nearly everyone will have power by Thursday night, except for some areas which are difficult to access.”

The majority of outages have been caused by heavy snow on limbs and trees, which crews must remove with chainsaws before repairing power lines. Broken cross arms and poles are also a common cause of outages.

Update On Power Restoration

UPDATE – 1/5/2022 – Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) crews and contractors have been working since the early morning hours of Monday, January 3, to restore electric service to members who were affected by weather-related power outages.

Between 6:30 a.m. Monday and 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, January 5, SMECO has had 78,600 customers affected by power outages; some of these have experienced multiple interruptions. More than 72,300 have been energized and had power restored.

As of 11:30 a.m., about 5,266 customers remain without power. SMECO spokesperson, Tom Dennison, said, “Our SMECO crews and our contractor crews are working diligently to restore electric service to as many people as possible, as quickly and safely as possible. We have about 914 outages in St. Mary’s County and hope to have nearly all of them restored tonight. We have about 1,092 outages in Calvert County, and most of them should have power tonight. In Charles and Prince George’s counties we have a total of about 3,260 customers without power. Many of them may not have service restored until tomorrow night.”

Dennison added, “Across every part of our service territory, we have experienced 60 feeder outages—that is 25 percent of our feeders. All feeders have been restored, except for one feeder at our Grayton substation. The majority of outages that we are working now have been caused by heavy snow on limbs and trees, which the crews must remove with chainsaws before repairing power lines. We also have a lot of cross arms breaking, as well as poles.” SMECO’s crews work to make sure substation feeders and major distribution lines are operational before making repairs to tap lines and individual service lines.

The status of SMECO’s power outages, helpful information, and outage reporting link are available at smeco.coop/outage.

SOUTHERN MARYLAND – Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) crews and contractors have been working throughout the day to restore electric service to members who were affected by weather-related power outages.

According to SMECO spokesperson Tom Dennison, “While we have made some headway and restored service to more than 33,000 people since Monday afternoon, the majority of the remaining outages that need to be repaired will be time consuming. If a line has several trees or limbs down, each repair needs to be made individually. And if we get a layer of ice tonight on top of the heavy snow already on the trees, we may experience additional outages. At this time, we expect to restore service to most of the customers in Calvert and St. Mary’s counties by late Wednesday night, and most customers in Charles and Prince George’s may have power restored by Thursday night.”
As of 8:18 p.m. on Tuesday, January 4, SMECO’s outage map showed about 11,680 people without service.

SMECO’s line crews, along with contractors from Sumter, Penn Line, AUI Power, CW Wright, and Utility Lines, are working to restore power in areas affected by outages. SMECO’s power restoration procedures prioritize repairs that will restore service to the most people in the least amount of time. Crews work to make sure substation feeders and major distribution lines are operational before making repairs to tap lines and individual service lines.

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

UPDATE – Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) posted the following update this afternoon:

At our peak on Monday afternoon at 3 p.m., we had more than 45,000 customers without power. We were able to restore service to thousands of people on Monday and as of 12:33 p.m. on January 4, we have 17,957 people without service.

Most feeders have been restored, but the remaining outages will take a while to repair. In addition, for each repair we make, just a few people will have their power turned back on.

Although one line may have several trees or limbs down, each incident has to be repaired individually, and making repairs to these types of incidents is time consuming.

When the power goes out, we know that accurate restoration times are important. On a normal day, when an outage is reported, the crew evaluates the extent of the damage and they calculate the time it will take to safely repair the damage. Once this is done, they enter an ETR into SMECO’s outage management system and that ETR appears on SMECO’s outage map. During a widespread outage event, there may be multiple reasons for a specific outage so SMECO does not provide estimated times of restoration (ETR) for each outage. After the larger causes are fixed, more specific information for outages may be available.

SOUTHERN MARYLAND – Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) has been working throughout the day to restore electric service to members who were affected by weather-related power outages.

According to SMECO spokesperson Tom Dennison, “with a foot of snow or more in parts of SMECO’s service area, this winter storm has caused power outages throughout Southern Maryland.”

SMECO’s line crews, along with Sumter and Penn Line contractor crews, have been working to restore power in areas affected by outages. 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 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, “This heavy wet snowfall has not only caused power outages, but it has made driving conditions treacherous and delayed line crews. Although we are working to restore service until late this evening, most of our crews will take a break overnight and be back on the job at 5 a.m. Tuesday.”

From 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. crews were able to restore service to thousands of customers by repairing 18 feeders. Currently, 20 of SMECO’s feeders remain offline. As of 8:45 p.m., SMECO’s outage map showed more than 27,100 customers without power and more than 770 incidents.

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