Thank you for your patience as we continue to safely restore power outages due to the damage from the wet, heavy snow we received overnight. We currently have 13,956 members of our 25,374 without power, meaning more than half of our members are without power. This unprecedently heavy snow has brought limbs, trees and lines down across our service area making some areas difficult to reach.
Our crews began working yesterday evening when the outage reports started. Since that time HOEC has requested Mutual Assistance from other Electric Cooperatives and we have more than 35 linemen coming to assist with this restoration. Some have already arrived, and the rest will be here by tonight along with assistance from HOEC pole change contractors.
With more than 13,000 members out of power, our phones are inundated with calls and some people are having trouble reaching us because of this. If possible, we encourage you to report your outage on the SmartHub app or online at the website www.hoecoop.org. If you need to call, please be patient and understanding. We are answering the calls as fast as they come through.
As with any emergency situation, we must plan for the worst and hope for the best. With additional crews working the outage, we hope to restore power in a timely manner, but what Mother Nature created in a few short hours, takes our lineman time to identify the issue, make any corrections, which might include moving downed trees and limbs and getting the lines back in working order in a safe manner. With this being said, HOEC is planning on this effort to carry on multiple days. We urge our members to make the appropriate accommodations.
Keep in mind this is not isolated to HOEC but includes outages across Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas. Black River Electric Cooperative, to our east, had a peak of 17,000 member outages. North Arkansas Electric saw as many as 27,000 members without power. Statewide in Missouri, more than 61,000 members have been without power at some point during this winter weather event.
If you come across a downed line or tree on the line, stay away from it and report it to HOEC. Again, thank you for your patience.
The screen capture of the State Outages Map shows the destruction from this winter storm was not limited to HOEC... our neighboring cooperatives are also dealing with outages and restoration. The Outages Map link is always available to our members to view on the HOECoop.org homepage (look for Willie Wiredhand).
