Special to Iredell Free News

More than 30,000 EnergyUnited members whose electric service was disrupted Thursday due to Tropical Storm Zeta now have power thanks to the significant progress of crews who are continuing to respond to outage reports.

There has been a lot of progress made in the past 24 hours after the worst impacts of the storm were felt in western and central North Carolina.

Approximately 44,000 members were without power at the peak of the storm due to heavy rain and high winds, which resulted in more than 40 broken poles and many downed power lines. However, EnergyUnited crews were able to accelerate restoration efforrs on Friday after receiving assistance from more than 200 linemen from 21 electric cooperatives and five contractors from Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina.

Assisting linemen and crew will continue to work until power is restored to all EnergyUnited members who were impacted by this multi-day event. Approximately 13,000 members were still without power Friday evening as a result of more than 500 separate outage events. These linemen and crew are working diligently to safely and quickly restore power.

Real-time power outage totals and locations can be viewed on the cooperative’s website and regular updates will be continue to be posted on Facebook and Twitter. EnergyUnited members are reminded to stay far away from downed power lines and to always assume any power line is energized and dangerous.

About EnergyUnited

EnergyUnited Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) is the largest electric cooperative in North Carolina serving nearly 130,000 metering points. Headquartered in Statesville, EnergyUnited provides electric service in portions of nineteen counties in west central North Carolina which include Alexander, Cabarrus, Caldwell, Catawba, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Gaston, Guilford, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Randolph, Rockingham, Rowan, Stokes, Wilkes and Yadkin. Visit EnergyUnited online at https://www.energyunited.com/restoring-power/ to learn more about the cooperative’s power restoration process.