They will depart at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday from Jeffersonville. Although they don’t have a specific assignment, Kabel said they will support crews from Dominion Energy.
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Dayton Power & Light and Duke Energy both say they are deploying resources to respond to Hurricane Florence.
A DP&L representative said the company is sending 16 lineman to Virginia, as well as contractors to support Duke. And “support and leadership” will be on call.
“Our crews are planning to go out tomorrow morning,” DP&L spokeswoman Mary Ann Kabel said Tuesday.
In advance of the hurricane, Duke Energy said it is moving power restoration crews from its Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Florida utilities so that they are staged in the Carolinas and ready to help the company’s regional crews restore power as soon as it is safe to do so, the utility said late Monday.
In addition, line technicians and workers are checking equipment, supplies and inventories to ensure adequate materials are available to make repairs and restore power outages.
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Florence has Category 4 strength and at this writing is about 400 miles south of Bermuda. Early Tuesday morning, the National Hurricane Center posted hurricane and storm surge watches along the East coast from Edisto Beach, S.C. north to the North Carolina-Virginia border.
“Restoring power after a massive storm can be extremely challenging for utility repair crews, as travel and work conditions can be impacted by high winds and widespread flooding — making repair work lengthy and difficult,” Duke warned.
“Before power can be restored, crews first must assess the extent of damage — which can take 24 hours or more — to determine which crews, equipment and supplies will be needed before repairs can begin,” the utility added.
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Duke is reminding customers to stay away from power lines that have fallen or are sagging and to maintain a supply of water and non-perishable food.
Duke Energy is one of the largest U.S. electric companies with nearly $138 billion in assets. The company services about 7.6 million customers across six states, including Southwestern Ohio.
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