Update- Jan.23 8:20 a.m.
SMECO Outage Map
Hughesville, MD – The Southern Maryland region appears to have weathered the weekend’s blizzard with a minimal interruption in electricity service.
“We did have over 7,000 interruptions during the course of the storm,” said Southern Maryland Electrical Cooperative (SMECO) spokesman Tom Dennison. “We lost approximately seven feeder lines. Our crews did a masterful job in conditions that can only be described as treacherous.”
Dennison commended those SMECO customers who experience electrical outages for their “patience.”
The precipitation composition may have contributed to the lower-than-expected number of outages. “It was a dryer variety of snow,” said Dennison. “The wind kept snow off the trees.”
On Sunday, crews were still out dealing with about 300 outages system-wide and cleaning up any residual issues caused by the storm.
Dennison said the co-op’s pre-storm preparation and routine maintenance—tree trimming, right-of-way maintenance, clearing feeder lines, maintaining infrastructure—all likely contributed to the lessening of outages during the blizzard.
According to Charles County Commissioner Ken Robinson, “SMECO experienced outages during the storm that impacted thousands of customers. Almost all were resolved incredibly fast. At 9:15 p.m. [Saturday], there are only 21 homes in Charles County without power. What they did was nothing short of amazing and I honestly don’t know how they did it considering the conditions their crews were dealing with. Thank you SMECO for making the storm a lot less trying for our citizens.”
For update SMECO outage map please refer to hyperlink below.
