About 120 Kentucky Power employees and contractors, including line technicians, forestry workers and other support staff, are assisting Florida Power and Light with outage restoration efforts resulting from Hurricane Matthew. Crews will work from a base camp in Lake City, Florida.
Kentucky Power teams left eastern Kentucky Thursday and are arrived Friday.
Kentucky Power answered a request for assistance in response to anticipated outages resulting from Hurricane Matthew. Kentucky Power is sending crews from its service districts hubs in Ashland, Pikeville and Hazard. Kentucky Power’s participation in Hurricane Matthew restoration efforts is a partnership in a nationwide mutual assistance program to aid other utilities during times of natural disasters and other crisis situations.
Kentucky Power provides service to nearly 169,000 customers in 20 eastern Kentucky counties. It is a unit of the American Electric Power system, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity and custom energy solutions to nearly 5.4 million customers in 11 states. AEP owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a more than 40,000-mile network that includes more 765-kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. AEP also operates 224,000 miles of distribution lines.
AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning approximately 31,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also supplies 3,200 megawatts of renewable energy to customers. AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.
(story provided by Kentucky Power)