Trees Topple Power lines, Leave Thousands In Midlands In The Dark
Cayce, SC (WOLO)– Thousands of South Carolinians are waiting for their power to come back on. The most recent numbers show about almost 200 thousand customers are in the dark. BI-LO store manager Tim Smith says when he saw a big crowd gathering at his store window, he had to check it out, and when he did he heard a loud snap, and that is when the store lights went out.
“I didn’t see it, but I did hear it. I think I more heard the power lines snapping and zapping,” Smith said.
Smith says he saw it coming with the high winds the Midlands were experiencing but didn’t know it was going to such a setback.
“Took out 3 or 4 sections of power line, and really wiped out this whole side of the street and all the way up,” Smith said. One of the homes affected by the outage is nearby resident Alex Bybees’. Who said it could have been worse.
“Hasn’t been awful but definitely been an inconvenience,” Bybee said.
Here in Richland and Lexington county alone, thousands lost electricity because of the storm.
“Missing some Monday night football, but I think there are some worse problems to be had,” Bybee said.
Big problems like what Smiths’ BI-LO could be facing, but thanks to their generators they are set. They say there is a lot of work to be done when the power comes back on, and if they are not sure the product is safe, they will not put it back on the shelves.
“But things like milk, fresh meat, things that are highly perishable, we already pulled that stuff off the floor and we got that stuck in our coolers and freezers in the back to save that product. But it’s pretty standard procedure what we do around power outages,” Smith said.
Smith said SCE&G called him and say they expect to be able to restore the power around midnight Monday or 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.
