Historic storm, historic recovery

Tropical Storm Helene causes unprecedented damage in York Electric’s service territory

On the morn­ing of Fri­day, Sept. 27, Trop­i­cal Storm Helene swept through York Electric’s ser­vice ter­ri­to­ry, caus­ing wide­spread dam­age across the west­ern and cen­tral parts of our sys­tem. By 10 a.m., we hit a record-high num­ber of out­ages, with 34,000 mem­bers report­ing pow­er loss—the most in York Electric’s 83-year his­to­ry. The storm brought down trees, snapped poles and downed lines on a scale we hadn’t seen since Hur­ri­cane Hugo.

For the next five days, our team, along­side con­tract crews and mutu­al aid from oth­er coop­er­a­tives, worked tire­less­ly under dan­ger­ous con­di­tions to restore and even rebuild parts of our pow­er sys­tem. Mean­while, every YEC employ­ee contributed—whether answer­ing mem­bers’ calls, deliv­er­ing meals to field crews, man­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions or coor­di­nat­ing efforts with statewide and gov­ern­ment offi­cials.

By Wednes­day, Oct. 2, at 4:10 p.m., pow­er had been ful­ly restored to all mem­bers affect­ed by the storm. This mon­u­men­tal task was only pos­si­ble thanks to the ded­i­ca­tion of our employ­ees, the patience of our mem­bers, the hard work of our fel­low coop­er­a­tives and the gen­er­ous sup­port of our com­mu­ni­ty.

As we reflect on this chal­leng­ing time, we are remind­ed of the resilience and strength of our com­mu­ni­ty. Togeth­er, we faced the storm, and togeth­er, we came through it stronger than ever. York Elec­tric is proud to serve such a remark­able group of peo­ple, and we remain com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing the safe, reli­able pow­er you deserve—no mat­ter what storms may come.

Community support

We have been over­whelmed by the out­pour­ing of gen­eros­i­ty from our com­mu­ni­ty fol­low­ing Trop­i­cal Storm Helene.

Thank you to the fol­low­ing restau­rants, whose staffs often worked in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing to feed more than 175 York Elec­tric employ­ees and assist­ing crews. Many also either donat­ed food or gave a dis­count.

• Bojan­gles (York loca­tion)
• Cap­tain Steve’s Fam­i­ly Seafood Restau­rant
• Chick-fil‑A (Cher­ry Road loca­tion)
• Courtney’s BBQ
• Domino’s Piz­za
• Eggs Up Grill (Rock Hill loca­tion)
• Jackson’s Kitchen and Cater­ing
• McAlister’s Deli (Rock Hill loca­tion)
• Smokey Beard BBQ
• Sub­way (York loca­tions)
• The Hon­ey Baked Ham Com­pa­ny
• Wing King (York loca­tion)

We are equal­ly grate­ful to the fol­low­ing com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who donat­ed food with mon­ey out of their own pock­ets to sup­port our crews. This includ­ed every­thing from pro­vid­ing snacks to laun­der­ing uni­forms for out-of- town crews here to help.

• Black’s Peach­es
• Bush-N-Vine Farm
• Greater Life Min­istries
• The Gilbert Fam­i­ly and Friends
• The Nel­lums Fam­i­ly
• The Pod­more Fam­i­ly
• York School Dis­trict 1

Help for those still suffering

Our sis­ter co-ops, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Upstate South Car­oli­na and West­ern North Car­oli­na, are still fac­ing cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age from Trop­i­cal Storm Helene. As you con­sid­er con­tribut­ing to relief efforts in these areas, we hope you keep the Coop­er­a­tive Devel­op­ment Foundation’s Dis­as­ter Recov­ery Fund in mind. Your dona­tion will help them get back on their feet and con­tin­ue serv­ing their com­mu­ni­ties.

Please con­sid­er con­tribut­ing today to sup­port co-ops in need by scan­ning the QR code.

Staying safe after the storm

Util­i­ty scams and fraud­u­lent schemes often arise after severe weath­er events like Trop­i­cal Storm Helene. Scam­mers use phone calls, texts, emails, fake web­sites and even door-to-door vis­its to try to steal from you.

First, please be aware of any­one pre­tend­ing to be a Mem­ber Ser­vices Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from York Elec­tric who asks for your cred­it card infor­ma­tion, bank­ing details, or Social Secu­ri­ty num­ber via call, text or email. Our strict pol­i­cy is to NEVER ask for per­son­al infor­ma­tion or pay­ment meth­ods over the phone or through texts or emails.

We encour­age mem­bers to report sus­pect­ed scams to local author­i­ties and the Nation­al Cen­ter for Dis­as­ter Fraud at (866) 720‑5721 or online at justice.gov/DisasterComplaintForm.