9:00 PM UPDATE (6/16/22) – Great news! All residential members have been restored! This leaves 21 non-residential members in the Aboite area. Those transmission-related issues are still being worked on in this area and will be completed sometime in the morning. This will be the last update for the day. Again, we appreciate your patience this week.
4:40 PM UPDATE (6/16/22) – We have 40 left to restore. Half of these are around the Aboite substation which are transmission related. All of the residential locations in that area have been fed from alternate sources.
3:00 PM UPDATE (6/16/22) - We're currently at 69 people who remain without power. Our crews are still working and we're hoping everyone will have power today.
12:10 PM UPDATE (6/16/22) - Around 170 members remain without power. We wanted to give you a look at one of our internal maps so you can see all the work being done in the areas still without power. We still think we’ll have the remaining members up by the end of the day, as mentioned in our last update.
8:00 AM UPDATE (6/16/22) - After bringing 5,000 back online yesterday, we’re down to 376 this morning. Crews are already out working, and we hope to bring 150 back on fairly soon. Then, this is where restoration will start bringing only a handful of people on at a time as we address smaller issues.
We are keenly aware that if you’re part of 376, that still means you’ve been out for days. It’s been over 30 years since our members experienced an outage like this, where power has been out for three days. We understand this is hard and we’re doing everything we possibly can. We hope to have the remaining members on by the end of the day.
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7:15 PM UPDATE (6/15/22) - 720 members remain without power at this time. They will be coming online between now and tomorrow. The issue in SW Allen County causing blinking power has been resolved, but if members are experiencing any issues, please call us. This is the last update for today. Our next update will be tomorrow morning. Thank you again for being patient during this restoration. It's almost over!
6:03 PM UPDATE (6/15/22) - for Southwest Allen County members - We have a crew en route to make some adjustments in your area. This is related to the load on our system right now as we’re bringing people back online. This should be taken care of in an hour.
5:37 PM UPDATE (6/15/22) - Our substations serving Larwill and the area around South Whitley are up so those members should be seeing restoration now.
5:15 PM UPDATE (6/15/22) - Great news! We are bringing back three substations right now which means most of our remaining members without power could potentially have power in the next 90 minutes. Now, keep in mind that we could uncover some new problems that we’ll need to fix. But we’re ready and will have those resolved quickly.
1:05 PM UPDATE (6/15/22) - We are currently switching things around in our Gateway substation, and should have approximately 1,000 members back online within the immediate Columbia City area within the hour.
12:15 PM UPDATE (6/15/22) - video update
9:45 AM UPDATE (6/15/22): 700 members southeast of Churubusco have gotten their power back. We'll post more updates as we have them.
9:00 AM UPDATE (6/15/22): Our first update of the day is to inform you that our office does not have internet access. This does not affect our restoration efforts at all. The internet outage appears to be part of a bigger issue affecting many people in the area. This means the outage map on our website will be unavailable. We have routed phone calls to a third-party call center until our internet access comes back. We will have a restoration-related update later this morning, and we think we’ll have good news. Please be patient with us while we gather more information.
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7:00 PM UPDATE (6/14/22): It looks like 2/3 of the remaining members will be back online as soon as the transmission repairs are finished. We remain optimistic that this significant restoration will happen tomorrow. The cooling station at our Columbia City headquarters will reopen tomorrow at 10:00 am for anyone who needs it.
2:00 PM UPDATE (6/14/22): At this time, we still have close to 7,600 members without power. We are now expecting the remaining restoration to be tomorrow, at best. Unfortunately, we have no control over the repairs being made to the transmission. Once those repairs are complete, we can begin bringing a large number of people back online.
Rest assured, we will continue to work on the distribution system to ensure that, as soon as the transmission is restored, the maximum number of members will be back in service.
We know the extremely high temperatures make this situation serious for so many. We will share more information as it becomes available.
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Major storm causes severe damage to transmission lines affecting more than 10,000 people in Whitley and Allen Counties
Columbia City, IN – Monday night’s storms brought recording-breaking winds to the Northeastern REMC service area, leaving more than 10,000 without power Tuesday morning.
Northeastern REMC (NREMC), a member-owned electric cooperative powering six counties in Northeast Indiana, sent their crews to begin replacing poles and clearing downed power lines as soon as it was safe to do so late Monday night. The storm, with reported 98-mile-per-hour winds in Fort Wayne, has caused considerable damage to the transmission lines from American Electric Power (AEP) that feed into the substations in Northeastern REMC’s service territory.
NREMC has confirmed that 7 out of the 16 total substations are offline due to damage to the transmission lines. These substations reduce the transmission power to a level that can be distributed to members’ homes.
“The simple fact is that AEP has been hit just as badly as we have by these storms. But, we’re all connected, and everyone works together to bring power to our area,” said Eric Jung, CEO of Northeastern REMC. He continued, “We have had crews out all night working to repair the system in order to restore service to several thousand members. We are at a point where we will be unable to bring large numbers of members on without restoration of the transmission lines.”
NREMC is urging members to contact 911 if they see downed powerlines and to consider all fallen wires to be energized, regardless of whether or not they appear to be safe. Many Whitley and Allen County roads are currently closed to keep the public safe and away from danger.
Due to the expected high temperatures in the area today, NREMC is providing a cooling station at their headquarters in Columbia City from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm. Water and restrooms are available for those who need them.
Updates will be provided on NREMC’s Facebook page at facebook.com/nremc. In addition, NREMC’s outage map is also available on their website at nremc.com.