Duke Energy president: 'We have work to do here'

Jul. 2—Duke Energy's Indiana president, Stan Pinegar, visited Terre Haute on Sunday afternoon to meet with local officials and discuss the status of power restoration in the community.

"Progress is being made and today is going to be a good day for us," Pinegar said. "We are getting after it."

With much infrastructure work addressed Saturday and hundreds of line workers on hand, officials anticipated significant progress Sunday — especially with weather stabilizing.

"The reason this area is taking longer is because the damage was more extensive" than in other areas, Pinegar said. "But we have really an army on the ground here and there is more coming this afternoon."

By 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Duke's outage map showed 21,984 Vigo County customers without power. Right after Thursday's storm, 58,000 were without power in Vigo County. By Friday evening, that number had been reduced to 38,000.

"We have work to do here. We've made good progress in other areas of our service territory, but certainly the damage here is not like anywhere else that we've seen," Pinegar said.

"We're knocking the numbers down," said Rick Burger, Duke's government and community relations manager.

In a news release issued earlier, Duke Energy stated it had restored power to more than 250,000 Indiana customers since Thursday's storm, but waves of storms added new outages.

As of 12 p.m. Sunday, about 45,000 customers statewide remained without power, Duke reported. The company aimed to restore the vast majority of these customers by midnight Sunday, contingent on weather, it said.

That was the goal for Terre Haute as well, Pinegar said.

"Our goal is to have as many of these remaining customers who are out back on by midnight [Sunday]. That's not going to be every single one," he cautioned.

"We have the resources here on the ground now," with 500 line personnel in Terre Haute, Pinegar said.

An additional 120 vegetation or "tree trimmers" were at work removing vegetation from power lines. Also, 60 people were doing assessments.

"It's a big job. We have to clear that [vegetation] before we can start work on these lines. The personnel are here. We just need the weather to cooperate," Pinegar sad

As of 7:30 p.m. Sunday, 2,109 remained without power in in Vermillion County, 3,425 in Clay and 5 in Sullivan.

Duke's Harley McCorkle explained that normally, three to six circuit-level outages might occur in a storm here.

In Terre Haute's case, 29 of 30-plus circuits were out — and each circuit can impact hundreds to thousands of customers.

"This is way more than normal," McCorkle said.

He also reported that hundreds of spans of wire were down across Terre Haute after this storm. Typically with outages in the past, it might be 30 to 40 spans of wire. It also involves much damaged equipment that must be repaired or replaced.

"A tremendous amount of wire was down on the ground, entangled in vegetation and things of that nature," McCorkle said. "It's just all over. Folks are working really hard trying to restore that."

And those responding "have to do it safely. We're talking about high power voltage," McCorkle said. "You could have high voltage lines on the ground."

Pinegar attributed the extensive damage to the severity of the wind, which reached 85 to 90 miles per hour.

"The force of those winds was the difference in the widespread nature of this," he said.

In traveling through Terre Haute, "You can see the damage," Pinegar said. "It's very visible."

When responding, teams first have to assess damages and then develop a recovery plan before power can be restored, Pinegar said. "That takes time."

Additional storms overnight Friday and Saturday have set workers back some, with outages going back up in the aftermath. "We had storms that did create a number of other outages," Pinegar said.

With weather stabilizing Sunday, "We're going to make much more noticeable progress with these numbers," Pinegar said.

While work remained in west central Indiana, Pinegar said he's proud of the effort that's been made to restore power statewide.

He and McCorkle met with Mayor Duke Bennett, Vigo County commissioners Chris Switzer and Mike Morris and Sheriff John Plasse. Officials expressed their support for the utility.

Bringing line workers in, making repairs and restoring power "takes time," said Mayor Duke Bennett. "People get frustrated."

Bennett said, "We appreciate you bringing a lot of resources to the table."

In prioritizing how power is restored, the company repairs large power lines and other infrastructure that will return power to the greatest number of customers, it said. Crews then can work on repairs affecting individual neighborhoods and homes.

Meanwhile, a report on the WTSP-TV (Tampa Bay) website said, "Duke Energy scrapped the plan to send local crews and contractors in Florida to help with the aftermath of damaging storms that ripped through Indiana this week.

"In an update Friday night, leaders with the electric company explain because of the restoration progress of crews and contractors, the extra help is no longer needed," the station reported on its website.

Rick Burger, contacted about the report, said he would check with corporate officials and have a response Monday.

In related developments:

—Vigo County and Terre Haute city government offices, for the most part, will be open Monday.

County Commissioner Chris Switzer on Sunday night said the Vigo County Annex will be open, but the courthouse itself will be closed.

Mayor Duke Bennett said that although he wasn't certain about City Court, most city government offices will be open.

County commissioners said in an email, "While we realize many people are still without power, we feel that county government needs to be open tomorrow (Monday). There may be offices that are short staffed, but we'll just have to do our best and be open for business. We have been in contact with Mayor Bennett and city government will be open as well."

—Vigo County commissioners say they have had numerous requests for a site to dispose of limbs. This Wednesday and Thursday, "We will accept limbs at our south highway garage at 10970 South Sullivan Place from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. This will be limited to citizens only and not commercial companies. After Thursday, we will evaluate the need moving forward."

—Nearly all Union Health buildings and practices now have power and are fully operational. All appointments and procedures will continue as scheduled Monday.

The only exception is Brazil Family Medicine, which will be closed Monday.

Sue Loughlin can be reached at 812-231-4235 or at sue.loughlin@tribstar.com Follow Sue on Twitter @TribStarSue