Storm Surge
When Hurricane Idalia struck the Suwannee Valley in August 2023, it set a record for the most damage done to SVEC’s system. Nearly all the cooperative’s consumers at the time were without power. It took a Herculean effort from over 2,000 workers to restore power to essentially all of them in just eight days.
No one expected that barely a year later, our area would be hit by an even more massive storm— Hurricane Helene. Making landfall as a Category 4 storm, Helene wreaked havoc not just in Florida but across the Southeast, including Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Reuters reported that approximately 5.5 million people lost power as a result of the storm.
Here at home, Helene once again knocked out power to nearly everyone on SVEC’s system. Fortunately, through experience, the cooperative has become more capable of handling these large-scale restoration efforts. The entire team, from line crews to office staff, played their parts in restoring power to essentially all of the cooperative’s consumers in only six days.
Thank you to everyone who had a role in helping SVEC turn the lights back on across the Suwannee Valley and to the cooperative’s consumer-members for your patience and understanding during a challenging week.
Helene By The Numbers
- 840 broken poles
- 1,482 total workforce
- 17 states sent help: Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, California, Michigan, Kansas, Indiana and Alabama.
- 6 days to restore power to 95% of consumer members in all counties.
A Year of Storms
- Hurricane Idalia — landfall August 30, 2023, Strong Category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour.
- North Florida Tornadoes — May 10, 2024 An intense squall line spawned at least five tornadoes, damaging wind gusts and straight-line winds across North Florida and the tri-state area.
- Hurricane Debby — landfall August 5, 2024 Category 3 with max sustained winds of 80 miles per hour and up to 12 inches of rain.
- Hurricane Helene — landfall September 26, 2024 Category 4 with max sustained winds of 140 miles per hour.
Rapid Fiber Restoration
When storms knock out fiber internet service, restoration can only begin once power lines and related equipment have been repaired. Rapid Fiber Internet works closely with SVEC to stay up to date on the status of all repairs and coordinate a response plan across the system.
Much like the electric restoration process, fiber technicians start at the source — the substation hut. Once those repairs are complete, they can fix any damage to the main and feeder line fiber before addressing outages at individual locations.
Thank you to contractors EnterSource and Bigham, as well as sister cooperative fiber company Tri-CoGo of Georgia, for their support in addressing more than 1,300 damage tickets. And a special thank-you to our customers for their patience and support while service was restored.
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