Santee Cooper crews have brought back online all but one of the 116 transmission substations that were out of service following Hurricane Helene, with just one delivery point to Aiken Electric Cooperative still out of service as of Sunday afternoon. Distribution service to residential and commercial customers was restored yesterday, Sept. 28.
“Our folks have worked very hard to get to this point, which is critical in helping affected electric cooperatives and municipal utilities continue to restore service to their affected members,” said Jimmy Staton, President and CEO. “Much work remains, and as we make progress on our own system, we will continue to send those crews we can spare to help our fellow utilities bring their customers back online.”
Also today, Santee Cooper increased its controlled spill of water through Lake Marion’s Santee Dam spillway to 80,000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs), up from 60,000 cfs yesterday. Santee Cooper’s dams and dikes are secure, and the controlled spill is creating space for anticipated major inflows coming into the lake in the next few days, to protect he integrity of the lake system’s dams and dikes.
The Santee Cooper Lakes are fed by a watershed stretching into North Carolina. That watershed, inundated by Hurricane Helene, is sending excess water to Lake Marion, both through increased river flows and spilling by other utilities upstream. Spilling is a normal part of Santee Cooper’s hydroelectric operations in such periods of escalated inflows into the lake system.
Spilling will continue until further notice, and developments will be noted on Santee Cooper’s Facebook page and Twitter feed. Information will also be updated each business day on the lake information line: 1-800-92LAKES.