Consumer Services Supervisor Rhonda Kennedy helps Faye Shelton spread

out a sumptuous feast for crews in the Livingston District office last week.

It’s a safe bet to say that no lineman in Livingston will climb a pole during a major outage with an empty stomach as long as Faye Shelton is around. Mrs. Shelton and her husband couldn’t stop thinking of crews working around the clock during the recent winter crisis, so they decided to do something to warm tummies and hearts during the storm. The couple braved the cold to bring Country Ham, sausage, and biscuits for the early crews – sandwiches, chips, and snacks for the late crews.  They didn’t stop there.

Once the outage was behind us and every light was on, the Sheltons took up a collection at Sunday School to buy the ingredients for a home-cooked meal for the Livingston District last week. They felt that after all that stress of grabbing food to run out the door, that the guys and gals needed to sit down, relax and enjoy a real lunch complete with laughter and fellowship. There was some talk of the storm, but mostly the conversation centered around the delicious specialties that Mrs. Shelton cooked up with love – and from scratch – in her kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Shelton, your thoughtfulness has made all the difference. Thank you for your kindness!

     On Sunday evening, every electric distribution company’s (and every line worker’s) worst nightmare began to unfold before our eyes, with significant ice accumulation building on UCEMC’s nearly 5,000 miles of line and other equipment.  Ice is far more dreaded than snow because of its weight. Ice doesn’t “shed” itself off our equipment like snow does until it eventually thaws. This unusual ice storm had a disastrous effect on our system because the ice accumulations we received exceeded our design standard set by the Rural Utilities Services and the National Electrical Safety Code. 

      The ice indeed had its way when it came to our equipment. Poles, wires, and cross arms standards are designed to withstand medium load ratings for up to ¼ inch of ice.  The extreme weather event that moved into our area on Monday layered on 1 ½ to 2 inches of freezing rain, ice, and snow, late Wednesday and Thursday resulting in more ice and another 4-6 inches of snow with five straight days of freezing temperatures. Cross arms, poles, and lines had far more stress on them than they were designed to withhold, causing them to weaken or break. As if that’s not enough trouble, trees and limbs began to fall on already weakened lines and lay them to the ground causing electrical faults. Even on well-maintained ROW, trees outside the 40-foot Right-of-Way clearance area uprooted and collapsed our infrastructure. 

     But, now, we are experiencing a thaw across the region that offers some relief. Repairs made now are more sustainable because a load of ice and snow on them is gone or lessening. Unfortunately, we can probably expect a few more days of tree limbs breaking and falling. The thaw will also produce wet soil, further weakening some tree’s roots, causing them to fall. But now, the news we’ve all been waiting for:  more often than not, repairs made to the main lines will stick, and we will be able to restore other members served by feeder lines from there. If you are still experiencing an outage and you can see that all of your neighbors are on, please go to the REPORT OUTAGE tab, click on your district office, fill out the brief form, and send it in. It’s important that we know about every outage and what the problems might be at your home.

Here is an additional explanation of how the process works from Upper Cumberland Business Journal and our colleague Carl Haney of Cookeville Electric.

Electric power comes in from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on large high-voltage (161Kv) transmission lines. For perspective, one Kv is 1,000 volts, so 161 KV is 161,000 volts of power. The power goes to one of six substations where transformers break down the power from 161 Kv to 13 Kv. This can be done with one transformer, but each substation has two transformers to provide redundancy if one is damaged or becomes inoperable.

Imagine a substation is like your house. Power comes into the substation and is broken up to serve smaller areas, and each has a breaker, just like your house and its breaker box. Typically, there are six breakers in each substation, serving 500-2,000 customers each, and designed to protect the overall system when something happens to one part of it. If a tree falls on one distribution line, the breaker for that section will flip, and the other town sections will not be affected.

Power leaves the substations on 3-Phase distribution lines. In Cookeville, these are primary lines that serve those 500-2,000 customers across small portions of the city.  The lines each carry 13 Kv of power. 

A transformer at each residence reduced the power from 13,000 volts down to 240 volts (two 120-volt lines) that feed the service on your house, providing its power.  

Why does it take so much longer to repair a 3-Phase line than a line to your house?

If a tree falls on one of the 3-Phase lines, it is typically a larger pole and creates greater damage.

If a tree falls on a line to your house, it’s typically going to break that line to the pole, or it’s going to rip the service off the house so that it can cause damage to your house. We can go out when you get your service up and just put that one line up. When the 3-Phase lines fall, they can break poles; they can tear up transformers and break cross arms. There’s just more equipment there for the potential for them to break when they do get torn down, and there’s a large number of customers that it affects.

Why was this storm so much worse?

The extreme cold and the ice made this the perfect storm.

Ice to us in the electric industry is a lot worse than snow. It stays on the trees. It stays on the lines – obviously, the ice does. It’s a lot heavier than snow. A quarter-inch of ice can cause damage. A quarter-inch of snow, and we don’t even know it’s there. On top of that, you started adding freezing rain that keeps accumulating on those lines.  Cookeville was right on the edge of a line during the storm. The southeast side was more rain, and the northwest side of that line was freezing rain. 

The majority of our damage was to the north and west of the city shared Haney. First, we had rain, and it began freezing. The rain and freezing rain continued to fall. So, when they would get one section clear and power restored, they would move to another section. 

Almost immediately, ice would begin to accumulate on the just restored section, and it would go back out. There were sections of the city that had to get repaired multiple times throughout the storm.

The multiple waves of this storm have made the biggest impact in damage. The continual fall of freezing rain, and even the regular rain that fell Wednesday night, froze upon hitting the ice that was already hanging on power lines and tree limbs, stressing them to the point of breaking.

This winter storm system is unlike anything we’ve seen in a generation. We are battling Mother Nature to restore your power.

We understand the frustration that comes along with extended periods of no electricity. Our friends and family rely on us to restore power, and we take pride in delivering the best service.

But, winter storms can be unrelenting and continually “undo” repairs until the weather breaks. That doesn’t stop us from making repairs in the harsh conditions until they stick. We appreciate the kindness members have shown our UCEMC employees, expressing appreciation and bringing food and coffee.

At UCEMC, we feel that “knowledge is power.” As we work to get the electricity flowing to your home, we want to empower you with updates, news, and information during this crisis. Many of you have questions about how we restore power. Here are some that we see the most:

Your Frequently Asked Questions:

Q:   I don’t see a UCEMC truck in my area. Are they working on getting the lights on in my neighborhood?

Even though you can’t see a utility truck working nearby, rest assured that UCEMC crews are working to get your lights back on. In the graphic above, you can see that we begin closest to the main lines near the substations and work our way out until we find the problem. Sometimes you can’t see the problem area that is causing your outage. It may be a significant distance away on a main line and need to be fixed before we can restore your power.

Q: My neighbor across the street has power, but I don’t. What’s going on?

You may notice that someone nearby has power back on before you do, such as one side of the street versus the other side. That’s probably because different power lines serve the two areas. It could also be a component on your house or meter pole is damaged. If you know that power is restored to your area and you see no damage to the service connection at your home, but you’re still in the dark call 1-800-261-2940 or visit the UCEMC website to report your outage. If you see damage to your service connection such as your meter being torn off the house by a limb, you’ll need to get a licensed electrician out to fix your equipment before your power can be restored.

Q:  I’ve reported my outage at least three times. How do I know that I’m being heard?

We thank you for reporting your outage by calling 1-800-261-2940 or visiting ucemc.com. Once you’ve done that, your outage is reported. Reporting an outage on the website is simple and easy when the call system is overwhelmed, as it is during this winter weather crisis. Call centers are not staffed to take 10,000 plus calls. We need to know about each and every outage.

Q: I see in your updates that power in many homes is on, but still, mine has been out for more than 24 hours. Why can’t you tell me when my power will be restored?

     With an ongoing winter storm and widespread outages, time estimations for repair are impossible. Until the weather clears, new issues continue to develop across the system, despite UCEMC’s best efforts. In worst case winter storms like we are experiencing now, sometimes the same repairs have to be made over and over until the weather clears. 

Q: How do you decide what to work on first?

In order of restoration, crews are dispatched first to deal with public safety threats, such as wires down that block roads or streets, traffic lights, etc. They also have to conduct damage assessments to assess where and what supplies are needed to make repairs. Our Right of Way (tree crews) must often be called in to clear fallen trees and limbs from roads before fixing the problem. We start repairs with the main lines, feeding from our power delivery points (or substations). Sometimes those repairs are extensive, and with ongoing winter storms, sometimes repairs have to be made over and over until the weather clears. Then, it takes additional time to repair neighborhood and individual lines once the main lines are repaired.

Q: My power was on yesterday for a few hours and then went off again. Sometimes, my lights are blinking off and on. Why is this happening?

Unfortunately, until the weather forecast changes in our favor with warmer temperatures, this may continue to happen during this winter weather crisis.  Our crews are making great strides, getting large numbers of members back online each day. More trees are breaking during the freezing nights, and limbs are snapping and falling on the lines. Sometimes the limbs make the lights blink, while heavier limbs and trees take out the wires – and your power.

We’re here to answer your many questions and help in any way we can. Please continue to visit ucemc.com and our Facebook page for information as this winter weather crisis continues.

One description is that it looked like a war zone in some Upper Cumberland areas last week. Once the snow and ice melted, those of us who aren’t lineworkers ventured out of our homes and looked around. If you live in town, you might not have seen that much damage from the storm at first glance. But other areas told a different story. Bowing street lights, hundreds of limbs littering the ground like matchsticks, some of them blocking utility access roads. Snapped power poles were abundant in some places.

Equipment on the ground in the 2021 Ice & Snow Storm

Bartlett Pear Down in 2021 Ice Snow Storm UCEMC

This is what UCEMC lineworkers faced as they continued to restore power to the remaining members who were without power last week.  Right of Way crews stayed far ahead of lineworkers to clear the path of hundreds of trees that snapped in the cold. Poles with transformers and lines still attached fell, street lights laid on the ground. This winter weather system packed all the punch of a hurricane without the water. Heavy ice and snow left behind damage similar to a tornado, except that damage was more widespread.  

This pole snapped like a twig in the 2021 Ice & Snow Storm.

UCEMC Crew in Dodsons Branch in the 2021 Ice & Snow Storm

Crews from Tri-County Electric Membership Corporation, Ft. Loudoun Electric Cooperative, Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation, and Appalachian Electric Cooperative assisted the UCEMC crews restoration effort, which narrowed down to the scattered, more isolated areas later in the week. In the Livingston District, power restoration was hampered by the sheer number of fallen trees over power lines in more rural areas., blocking access roads, impeding pole installation, and line replacement. Diggers, bucket trucks, and crews faced more rugged terrain and extensive damage as restoration work reached into the scattered outages along hills and remote, unpaved roads. 

REPORT OUTAGES on the home page by clicking on the District Office tab and details about your district.