Days after Hurricane Matthew, thousands in Beaufort County still without power

While water service has been restored to most of Beaufort County, tens of thousands of locals are still without power as Hurricane Matthew clean-up continues.

About 54,000 residents were still in the dark as of Monday afternoon, said Beaufort County administrator Gary Kubic. That’s down from the roughly 73,000 locals who were without power through Sunday night, according to a Beaufort County news release.

“There are 501 electrical linemen within Beaufort County working to restore power and an additional 250 who are expected to arrive today,” the Monday morning release said.

▪  On Hilton Head Island, Palmetto Electric Cooperative president Berl Davis said there are a few areas with power, but most of the island is still in the dark. It is possible that more residents may see their power restored as early as Tuesday. But, he said, “optimistically, we are looking at tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow night” for the majority of customers’ power to be restored.

▪  In Bluffton, power is back in many neighborhoods. “Most of are folks ... are restored,” Davis said.

▪  The rest of the county is a mixed bag. Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said Monday afternoon that local leaders are “still waiting on a report (of the extent of outages in) northern Beaufort County.” Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling added that outages are still prevalent north of the Broad River. He is among those without power. Congestion on the highways Sunday prevented additional utility crews from providing relief. Stuck in long lines of traffic, the crews spent Sunday night in their trucks, Keyserling said.

“Beaufort County was one of the hardest hit” areas in the state, restoring power to locals “presents a unique challenge,” said SCE&G spokesman Eric Boomerhower.

He said the company spent much of Sunday performing damage assessment, and the focus is now shifting toward restoration.

While Boomerhower could not say specifically where the manpower in Beaufort County will be focused, he did said, “We’ve got crews all over the place.”

Davis said the company had 200 employees working in crews Monday to restore power to about 25,000 Beaufort County customers. Typically only about 50 people are out working on power lines on a given day.

Palmetto Electric spokeswoman Missy Santorum said, “We are trying to be very timely and we appreciate (customers’) patience and understanding.”

Gov. Nikki Haley said Monday afternoon that personnel with state agencies such as the S.C. Department of Transportation have shifted into “support mode for our counties” to help clear debris in advance of power crews.

“Cool and dry weather” in the coming days will assist recovery efforts, including power restoration, she said.

Along with the widespread power outages, Hilton Head Island has experienced some of the worst lingering water-related issues in the county.

Because the island, which is still not open to evacuees or visitors, is mostly without power, the sewer system is also down, Hilton Head Public Service District general manager Pete Nardi said.

This means island residents who stayed in their homes must not flush toilets, he said.

On the bright side, “we have about 90 percent of the water system up and we are not aware of any contamination at this point,” Nardi said.

When residents return and begin using water in their homes, customers will be advised to boil water used for drinking, cooking and dish washing for the short term, he said.

Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority is asking residents to restrict water use to essential needs until power is restored throughout the two counties.

“Even though power has been restored to the BJWSA water treatment plants, the booster pump stations needed to distribute the water to all parts of our service area are without power and are being operated on generators,” the utility said in a news release Sunday.

This story was originally published October 10, 2016 at 11:36 AM with the headline "Days after Hurricane Matthew, thousands in Beaufort County still without power."