Touchstone Energy® Special Achievement Scholarship

Each year at this time, our scholarships program support high school seniors and college students whose parents are members of the Cooperative.

For rules and an application please click on the link below.

The application deadline for the Touchstone Energy® Special Achievement Scholarship is Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

Scholarship info

............................................................

February 2010 Storm Summary

Friday, February 5th

The day started like any Friday with a buzz about the snow coming and Super Bowl Sunday. In anticipation of the Winter Storm Watch many kids were home from school. Around noon, a heavy snow began to fall, and fall, and fall. The combination of wet snow and temperatures caused snow to stick to everything, including trees and electric wires. By 9:00 P.M. all linemen were called back to work as the Cooperative was in for a “bumpy ride”.

Saturday, February 6th

Southeast Ohio woke up to about 28 degrees and 10 inches of wet, but drifting snow, and unfortunately about 5400 meters were without electricity. The Cooperative was under full storm restoration, and General Manager Garry Mbiad was making calls to bring in additional crews, from in and out of Ohio. The Mt. Sterling and Salt Fork Substations were both out, along with over 100 line outages. Line outages can serve from one member to several hundred, each requiring a crew to make a repair which can last from 30 minutes to an entire day per line. Saturday evening the first extra crew from Mid-Ohio Electric Cooperative in Kenton, Ohio arrived and was quickly dispatched to help Guernsey crews with what would become a record storm. Around 9:00 P.M., when many employees had worked 24 hours, it was time to get some rest. Others who were rested, continued through the night.

Sunday, February 7th

The morning was colder, about 10 degrees, most linemen returned to their trucks at 6:00 A.M. knowing they had an 18 hour day of walking through heavy snow, dragging tools and working to keep trucks from “getting stuck”. They passed the other linemen who had worked during the night in the garage on their way home for some sleep before starting the process all over again. 4400 homes were dark, and members were patiently waiting. The office was a buzz, other Guernsey employees were answering phones, gathering food and drink, ensuring hotels and meals would be available for the invited guest linemen. Between noon and 3:00 P.M., 8 more crews which consisted of 16 linemen were added to the efforts. The crews came from the following sources: Consolidated Electric Cooperative from Delaware, Ohio, Union Rural Electric Cooperative from Marysville, Ohio, Northeastern Indiana Electric Cooperative from Indiana, and Pike Electric from Tennessee. By 4:00 P.M., the snow finally stopped falling, but much work was left to get the remaining 3645 members “back in power”. Fortunately, repairs were made to re-energize the Salt Fork Substation.

Monday, February 8th

Monday morning was a mix of good news… AEP replaced a broken transmission pole which had de-energized the Mt. Sterling Substation. It was now back online. Extra crews were in place to work: more were coming; progress was happening. For the bad news…temperatures hovered around zero, 2155 still could not turn on a light, and the National Weather Service issued another winter storm warning for Tuesday. Two more crews joined in the effort Monday, another from Northeastern Indiana and Firelands Rural Electric Cooperative from New London, Ohio. The phones were ringing steady with mostly pleasant voices, making certain their outage was in the computer. A few other calls, which were not so pleasant, but understandable, as homes were freezing, frustration was building, not personal, just frustrated with a course of unfortunate events, and no idea when full power would be restored. In the afternoon, two additional substations (Antrim and Senecaville) went down due to transmission feed issues. AEP, the transmission line carrier, was on the site and able to restore the transmission line in just a few hours. 2052 members were still in the dark.

Click to view a storm damage slideshow

............................................................

February 2010 Storm Summary - continued

Tuesday, February 9th

With another winter storm looming, all crews reported for duty in hopes that the weatherman was wrong. Although the snow and winds came as predicted, the severity was minimal compared to early reports. Another crew rolled into town at around 8 A.M. from Holmes-Wayne Cooperative in Millersburg, Ohio. Tuesday morning all efforts from the previous days/nights work and preparation paid off as the outages dropped to 778. Another 3 to 4 inches of snow fell and the winds did increase but Mother Nature was kinder than predicted. With 587 unfortunate members remaining, the hopes were high for Wednesday’s results.

Wednesday, February 10th

Another inch of light snow drifted down Wednesday morning, but your Cooperative could see the finish line. The restoration is generally the same; substations first, then main 3-phase feeders, long lines, short taps and finally individuals. This process ensures the most members back in power the quickest. When the day began, it was the first morning we took a step backwards. The night’s high winds increased outages up to 638. With all GMEC crews and the other extra help, the step back was quickly remedied, and outages dropped to 350 by 10:30 A.M. The goal was set earlier in the week to have 95% back in power by Wednesday night: that goal was reached Wednesday morning. Finally, Wednesday afternoon, virtually 100% of the system was restored, with only a handful of unique exceptions.

Thursday, February 11th

Thursday was “clean-up” day. All outside, extra crews were thanked and released to go home. Guernsey-Muskingum crews continued to “clean-up” orders which were not outages, the trucks and the warehouse. The storm of February 2010 was the largest storm in Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative’s recent history, affecting 10,623 homes, or 63% of the entire service area. The member-outage hours surpassed the hurricane of 2008 and the flood of 1998. There were more members without power during this storm than existed on the entire system during the blizzard of 1978. Regardless of numbers and who was on or who was out, all were affected this week in February. Memories will be mixed; from good family gatherings, neighbors helping neighbors, to frustrations of frozen pipes. As of Friday, February 12th, we are not aware of any injuries, which is a testimony to the 45 Guernsey-Muskingum employees, the 22 additional linemen from the Cooperative family, and the Rural Cooperative Members of Southeast Ohio.

Click to view a storm damage slideshow

OUPS
Home Energy Calculator
Touchstone Energy Savers
Kids Corner
EnviroWatts
Touchstone Energy
ACRE Political Action