One part of Charlotte seems to lose power more than others: What’s being done about it

CHARLOTTE — One part of Charlotte seems to lose power more than others. Sometimes it’s during a storm, but not always.

“The power goes out, not just for storms,” Sherwood Forest resident Douglas Edwards told Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke. “If it’s cold, hot, if it’s a nice day. It’s a cloudy day.”

“It was going to be back up in 12 hours. 12 hours became 18. 18 became 24,” Sherwood Forest resident TJ Rzeszotarski said.

“And then you think about all of the kind of downstream impacts related to that, like if the kids have to go to school, it impacts your ability to get ready for school, food starts to spoil,” Edwards said.

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“I have to be able to go to work and do my job,” Sherwood Forest Resident and nurse Sarah Greer said. “I’ve had some occasions where I have to go to work that night, but we have no power so I have to take a shower and be able to sleep.”

Duke says it tracks numbers, but by “circuits,” not neighborhoods, and the two circuits that serve Cotswold serve other areas. So maybe that part of town loses power the most, maybe not. But people there say it sure feels that way.

“It feels like we’re on an island in some ways versus the rest of the metro area,” Edwards said.

Duke Energy made major changes to combat this about eight years ago, but it seems to keep happening.

“We understand that outages are frustrating and we’re going to do everything we can to improve our customers’ service – and we believe that this activity will make a difference,” Duke Energy’s Logan Stewart said.

Duke says the main cause of power outages anywhere: trees. Limbs come down and take out power lines. Of course, a lot of neighborhoods have trees, but Duke says here’s the difference with Cotswold: most neighborhoods have either power lines along the street or underground. Sherwood Forest has a lot of the poles in backyards, immersed in the trees.

“We used to put poles and lines in the backyard and so we refer to that a lot as ‘back lot’ infrastructure,” Stewart said.

And it can be a recipe for trouble.

”A smaller branch, for example, falls on a line in a customer’s backyard and that causes an outage," she said.

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Duke told Stoogenke they’re constantly improving technology to identify trouble spots better and using newer tech to restore power faster.

For example, Duke has implemented remote restoration, where Duke workers in control centers switch people to different lines when power goes out, and self-healing technology that automatically reroutes power in Cotswold.

Plus, the company says they used to trim trees — not just in Sherwood Forest, but everywhere — on a set schedule, a rotation. Not anymore.

“We recently changed that trimming frequency. We now do that based on the circuit performance and just the needs of the area,” Stewart said. “So we’re looking at it much more frequently than we used to.”

In fact, the company says they’re starting a major project in Sherwood Forest now.

“We do anticipate that will clear up a lot of the issues there,” Stewart said.

If that doesn’t work, they can always turn to other measures.

“If down the road, things persist, and we’re doing this assessment of the vegetation situation more frequently and we see that’s not working, we can look at other solutions like underground, like moving the back lot infrastructure,” she said, but that tends to be a last resort because of how expensive it is.

Developers install either underground or overhead lines on new projects. The overhead lines are usually near roads and curbs.

Which power lines go underground?

“You buy a house, you pay your taxes, and you just expect a certain amount of reliability of the electric grid here that you just don’t get here,” Edwards said.

He says he broke down and bought a backup generator.

“The fact that we had to make a very significant purchase because of something that we would expect would be there on a reliable basis not being there,” he said. “It was a lot of money. I’m not going to say on camera how much it was, but it was a lot.” He says five figures.

But you can count on one thing: if Duke resolves this, these homeowners won’t take it for granted.

“And, boy, when that thing lights back up, boy, do you feel like the king of the world,” Rzeszotarski said.

Duke says customers should report potential issues with trees and lines even if they “aren’t sure” by calling 800-228-8485 or contacting your local emergency services department.

You may be wondering whether you can get your utility to pay for spoiled food and other damages when the power goes out.

North and South Carolina don’t have laws forcing utilities to reimburse you.
But Stoogenke says you should still submit a claim to your power company.
If they say no, try your homeowners — or renters — insurance. It’s worth a shot.
If you’re thinking of suing the utility for your losses. Some customers have actually won in other states over the years. But it’s hard. Stoogenke says you usually have to prove the utility was grossly negligent or worse.

VIDEO: Why don’t we bury all our power lines to prevent outages?