Duke Energy has restored power to approximately 99,700 customers in Indiana following severe storms that caused widespread outages. Wind gusts reached up to 70 miles per hour, affecting nearly all of the 28 districts served by the company. As of 4 p.m. ET, around 16,800 customers remain without service.
"We've made a lot of progress, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us," said Clint Carnahan, general manager of emergency preparedness at Duke Energy. "The widespread nature of this storm, which affected nearly all of the 28 Indiana districts we serve, has made power restoration especially challenging. We have a workforce of approximately 1,000 in the field responding. We appreciate our customers' patience as we finish the job."
Duke Energy expects most remaining outages in several regions to be resolved by midnight tonight or sooner. These areas include Attica, Aurora, Carmel, Clinton, Connersville, Corydon/Salem, Franklin, Greensburg, Huntington, Kokomo, Lafayette, Martinsville, Rochester, Seymour, Shelbyville and Wabash.
In other regions such as Avon/Plainfield and Greencastle/New Castle outages are expected to be resolved by noon Friday. Bedford/Bloomington and Noblesville/Terre Haute should see restoration by 6 p.m. Friday. Columbus is anticipated to have power back by midnight Friday.
Customers with extensive property damage or flooding may experience longer restoration times.
During the restoration process priority is given to repairing large power lines and infrastructure serving the greatest number of customers safely and efficiently. Essential services like hospitals and water facilities are also prioritized before crews address individual neighborhoods and homes.
For outage updates and information on estimated restoration times customers can access Duke Energy’s interactive outage map or report outages via text message mobile app website or phone call.
Duke Energy Indiana serves about 920000 customers across a 23000-square-mile area providing approximately 6300 megawatts of electric capacity making it Indiana’s largest electric supplier.
Duke Energy headquartered in Charlotte N.C., is one of America’s largest energy holding companies serving millions across several states with both electric and natural gas utilities while investing in grid upgrades cleaner generation technologies including renewables nuclear natural gas and energy storage.
More information can be found on their website or through various social media platforms.
Contact: McKenzie Barbknecht
24-Hour: 800.559.3853