CHELCO recently offered Mutual Aid assistance to York Electric Cooperative in South Carolina and Yazoo Valley Electric Power in Mississippi.

In anticipation of the major ice storms that swept across the southeastern United States, our first crew departed for York Electric Cooperative early on the morning of Saturday, Jan. 24. Thankfully for our crews and York Electric Cooperative, the storm did not cause widespread outages as initially forecast, and mutual aid support was ultimately not needed. Our crew returned safely home late on Monday, Jan. 26.

Then, less than a week later, another CHELCO crew answered the call and departed for Yazoo Valley Electric Power Association in Mississippi. This time, the storms had already impacted thousands of Yazoo Valley members. Our crew worked hard for eight days, helping restore power following major damage, before a safe return home. Yazoo Valley Manager of Operations Brett Cerda said that CHELCO’s crew was extremely helpful to their power restoration efforts.

“I’m proud of our crews for willingly leaving home to help hundreds of families they’ll never know,” said Matthew Avery, CHELCO SVP and COO. “Most importantly, our crews returned home safely. I’m thankful that we were able to help a fellow cooperative in need.”