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Covington Electric Cooperative crews, along with assisting contract crews, worked very hard during the overnight hours and early this morning to restore power as outer bands from Hurricane Sally began to impact the Covington County area.

The slow-moving storm is weakening as it moves inland, but forecasts indicate strong tropical force winds in the CEC service area will continue throughout the day.

“These hazardous conditions make it unsafe for our crews to resume power restoration efforts at this time,” CEC public relations manager Patty Singleton-Seay said. “We will continue to monitor the weather and will respond to emergency situations as they arise.”

The CEC disaster response team is expecting outage numbers to increase as this dangerous storm treks across its service area.

“We want to remind members they can report power outages 24/7 by calling 800-239-1193 or by using the CEC App,” Singleton-Seay said. “Please do not use social media to report outages. CEC members can monitor power outages using the Outage Viewer on our website covington.coop or the CEC App.”

Safely restoring its customers’ power is the cooperatives top priority and when conditions permit its crews to resume this important effort, they will do so.

“CEC has approximately 40 contractors ready to assist our crews and more on the way,” Singleton-Seay said. “We do anticipate some prolonged outages that may not be resolved until tomorrow and we realize this is frustrating and some members will be using generators. CEC urges people to carefully read the manufacturer’s instructions for using a portable generator. Improper use of a generator can be deadly to the homeowner and to the line workers restoring your power. You can read more about generator safety on the CEC website.”

For the safety of its members and its employees, all CEC offices closed at 1 p.m., Wednesday afternoon for regular business.

“As previously stated, the co-op will continue to respond to emergencies and we will provide updates on restoration progress through social media and our website,” Singleton-Seay said. “CEC strongly urges everyone to avoid downed power lines and to treat any power line as if it is energized. If you see a downed power line, stay far away from it and call the CEC outage line or 911. We ask for your patience and understanding as we get through this major weather event together. CEC is here to serve our members and that is exactly what we plan to do. Thank you.”