Power outages send thousands to area hotels

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — In our five county viewing area more than 67,000 people are in the dark and those who don’t have a friend or family member to stay with are heading for the hotels.

“I thought I would be in town for just four nights and it’s been six now,” said Karen Hopkins.

Thankfully Hopkins had family in Wilmington who she was able to stay with until the power went out Wednesday afternoon.

“I waited an hour and I thought it was going to come back on any minute, but then it didn’t come on,” said Hopkins. “I decided to go to the CVS, and just in case get a few candles and get a flashlight, but the CVS I went to first was closed so then I called the hotel.”

Close to 40% of New Hanover and Brunswick County residents who use Duke Energy Progress were without power and another 90% were without power in Columbus County.

The large number of outages has the electric company calling in the cavalry.

“The good news is Duke Energy has an army of technicians and line crew ready to work at the first day break tomorrow morning,” said Dave Scanzoni. “It’s unsafe for our crews to work over night in the darkness but we’ll be having a crew of about 4000 between this part of southeastern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina because those are the areas hardest hit.”

With some outages expected to continue for multiple days for some the weekend can’t soon enough.

“I love Wilmington, it’s a beautiful place and I’m enchanted with it from the beach to the river it’s wonderful, but I’m ready to go home,” said Hopkins.

Scanzoni says that the areas with the highest number of outages will be targeted to get their power on first, and crews are working around the clock until all power is expected to be restored by Saturday.