How Kentucky utilities are preparing for Helene

(WKYT) – Hurricane Helene will make landfall in Florida on Thursday night. This storm will have impacts far inland and affect many people. This leads to big plans in terms of response.

“We follow Helene’s footsteps on her way to Kentucky. First, our co-ops are focused on restoring power to the co-ops here at home, and these crews hold briefings to always be prepared for any emergency,” said Joe Arnold of Kentucky Electric Cooperative.

While many co-ops remain in Kentucky to monitor the situation, Arnold said seven different co-ops are traveling south to help elsewhere.

“Our cooperatives in Kentucky have been brought together with cooperatives in Georgia. So we have co-ops that are on their way to Georgia right now or are heading out soon, and there are other co-ops that are waiting until the weather cooperates here and they can see and make sure that they have enough crews to accommodate them when “We’re taking care of things here, they’ll probably send crews too,” Arnold said.

With wind gusts of over 50 miles per hour possible in our area, enough people here need to be ready for power outages. Kentucky Utilities will remain on site immediately.

“We keep our people here. We must make retaining our customers our top priority here in Kentucky,” said Daniel Lowry of Kentucky Utilities.

Lowry says there’s only so much you can do to limit power outages.

“Our system is designed to withstand extreme conditions, but trees often cannot. So they will fly into our lines. We’re going to get limbs there that cause problems,” Lowry said.

Due to the heavy rains Helene brings, the saturated ground will cause trees to fall more easily and cause power outages.

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