Singing River Electric Cooperative has two construction crews and one service crew headed for Florida. The 13 employees will be a part of a convoy of 267 Mississippi electric cooperative linemen and engineers traveling to restore power following Hurricane Irma. Crews will leave first thing Tuesday morning to make the drive east.
“Safety is our upmost concern,” said Singing River Electric CEO Mike Smith. “Clay Electric’s service area was still experiencing high winds and severe weather associated with Hurricane Irma earlier today. We needed to give time for the storm to pass and for the cooperative to assess their damage before our crews arrived.”
Singing River Electric crews will join crews from nine other electric cooperatives in Mississippi. The arrangement is part of National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s (NRECA) mutual assistance program. Electric cooperatives in need activate their mutual assistance plan and call on neighboring statewide associations to request assistance. Electric cooperatives are ready to answer the call for help embodying one of seven cooperatives principles, Cooperation among Cooperatives.
“Our linemen are ready to get to work restoring power in Florida,” said Smith. “We know what it’s like to help, and more importantly, what it is like to receive help following Hurricanes Katrina, Camille and others.”
Clay Electric Cooperative
- As of 2:30 p.m. on Monday, September 11, 86% (147,225) of Clay Electric Cooperative’s 171,186 members were without power.
- Clay Electric is headquartered in Keystone Heights, Florida, and has six different offices serving the area around Gainesville. They are the eight largest electric co-op in the nation.
- They serve 171,186 meters across 13,128 miles of power lines and 14 counties.
- Singing River Electric is an electric cooperative guided by a set of seven cooperative principles. One of these principles is Cooperation Among Cooperatives.
Singing River Electric is an electric distribution cooperative serving nearly 74,000 meters across seven counties in Mississippi (Jackson, George, Greene, Perry, Stone, Wayne and Harrison), as well as two counties in Alabama (Mobile and Washington). The cooperative will celebrate eight decades of serving the needs of local communities in 2018. For more information on Singing River Electric and our restoration efforts in Florida, visit www.singingriver.com, or join our social media conversations on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.