Duke Energy Indiana Battles Ice Damage to Restore Electric Service

PLAINFIELD, IND. - Ice damage from this week’s winter storm has caused power outages for approximately 80,000 Duke Energy customers in southern Indiana. Service has been restored to nearly 17,000 customers as of 11 a.m today and plans are under way to address the remaining outages.

Freezing rain during the early morning today caused significant outages in southern Indiana, primarily in Clarksville, Jeffersonville, New Albany, Corydon, Salem, and Madison.

While power restoration is underway, the company is still assessing damage from the storm in order to develop power restoration estimates. Duke Energy expects to be restoring power into the weekend, but doesn’t have a complete assessment yet. Treacherous road conditions, including trees blocking roadways, are making assessment of the problems more challenging. A combination of continued below-freezing temperatures for the next few days and blowing winds could cause even further damage to power lines and equipment.

“Ice can be a utility’s worst enemy,” said Duke Energy Indiana President Jim Stanley. “It builds up on power lines and can cause branches and trees to fall into lines. Based on the weather forecast, we mobilized early Tuesday and brought in an additional 450 line workers from the region and our companies in the Carolinas to supplement our Indiana crews and speed up power restoration.”

The company cautioned people to stay away from downed power lines and anything touching those lines.

“Fallen power lines can be extremely dangerous,” Stanley said. “Anyone who sees a downed line should assume it’s energized, avoid it and report it to us.”

Customers can report downed lines and outages by calling 800-343-3525. Outages reported on this line are routed automatically to those responsible for responding to them. Additional storm tips and outage information can be found on the Duke Energy web at: http://www.duke-energy.com/.

Customers can also get storm news updates on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DukeEnergyStorm

Duke Energy’s Indiana operations provide approximately 7,300 net megawatts of electricity to approximately 775,000 electric customers, making it the state’s largest electric supplier.