Gov. Henry McMaster and various utility and state agency officials held a press conference in Aiken Sunday afternoon. McMaster urged patience as thousands of crews work to restore normalcy to more than a million residents in the Midlands and Upstate.
Below is the transcript of the press conference.
Gov. Henry McMaster
[We’ve] Suffered a devastating storm. Tragically, we've lost, we believe, 25 people, 25 of our people due to this storm, and we don't want to lose any more. So we ask everyone to be careful. Don't go out. Don't don't use a chainsaw for the first time today or during this storm.
Also, be careful. There are electrical wires running under downed trees and limbs, and don't go out if there's any chance that there's any The wire running under those, that debris because you can get shot and die. And that is the reason that it is taken us a while to get these things, get the debris out of the way, and that is the chainsaws cannot go in until the electricity is turned off by the power company.
Power companies are working around the clock. We have thousands of people out all over the state and we'll have some details in a moment on that. But this is something that's going to require some patience. We haven't seen anything quite like this before, particularly in this part of the state. But it is a It's a devastating blow, but we can make it through.
All we have to do when we get that debris cleared, once we get the debris cleared, then we can get in and fill in stations and all the stores, all the things without electricity, including some of the cell towers aren't working. So we're really in the dark in some places, but it's going to take patience, but we're getting there.
We're making steady progress. We've had meetings every day on this. We have two, two a day with all the county people, all State people to keep everyone informed and be sure the assets are being allocated to the most of the best, uh, advantageous spots. I've asked the, the National Guard today and the State Guard to take any, any personnel that are available that are not already deployed and put 'em to work, assisting and helping around the state, wherever they can be of any assistance.
And they'll be working closely with the state's law enforcement division. Chief Chief is here to discuss that as well. We want people to remain calm. Help is on the way. It's just going to take some time. We're working to have a system up where you can go online or go to places that have this sort of information to see which gas stations open, which, which roads, the block, all that sort of stuff.
Some folks can't get online to see it and go ahead and have it available. But we ask everyone to be very patient. Um, also the, the power companies and Keller Kissam can. and go into this a little bit in more detail about the thousands of people that are out there that they're for Duke. The coops are working around the clock as well.
And the Department of Transportation is it was positioned before the storm, getting ready for the storm, and now they're working around the clock as well. We have people sleeping in offices, sleeping in not in hotels, but in warehouses and all sorts of places enabled to enable them and their crews to keep working around the clock.
So I'll ask Justin Powell, the secretary of transportation to provide some information.
Justin Powell, secretary of transportation for the South Carolina Department of Transportation
Thank you, Governor. I'm Justin Powell, secretary of transportation for the South Carolina Department of Transportation. As the governor alluded to, we have been working around the clock in preparation for this. for as well as in response to Hurricane Helene.
We went on to 24 hour operations on Thursday morning in advance of the storm. Our crews stayed in place during the storm when it became, the winds became lifted and we were able to start cutting our way out of our position. facilities, and we have been responding ever since there. We have been augmenting and adding in resources from the eastern half of the state as well as contractors in the counties like Aiken, Edgefield as well as up into the upstate as well.
Our focus operationally right now is to work on Uh, the interstates first. That mission was completed yesterday. We're now focusing on our primary routes. That's a S. C. 19. That's a U. S. One down here. Focus on those roads which carry about half of the state's traffic. Once we get those resolved, we'll move on to the city.
Secondary roads. Those are your neighborhood streets that the D. O. T. Operates. One of the biggest challenges we've been having as the governor alluded to our power lines entangled in our trees entangled in the power lines. We will be working closely with our utility partners, but that limits our ability to do that.
But we are closely working together to resolve those power lines. Once they get on, we'll take out those trees. We ask for the public's patience during this time. This is a challenging time, a very large event. In terms of the amount of trees, thousands of trees have come down. Know that there are some resources available to you.
Our call center is working extended hours. 1 855 GO SCDOT Also can advise that the S. C. D. O. T. Website. S. C. D. O. T. Dot. O. R. G. has our road closure information under the travel tab that is available for you to kind of see where the route is. But no, we're gonna continue to work 24 hours. We asked the public for patients when you come across a crew, whether it's a D.
O. T. Crew, a National Guard crew, a utility crew or one of the local public works crew or public safety crew out there. Slow down, give them their space, let them do their jobs. It's the most important thing we can do to get the power back on the roads reopened for South Carolina. I know that we're going to continue to work around the clock for that.
As this Uh, mission wraps up in terms of clearing the roads. We will be dealing with debris cleanup that'll start in earnest in October, and we'll start working to clean up these piles of debris that are on the ground. But know that, uh, your, your DOT is committed and is working continuously, uh, leaving their friends and family is behind to working on the behalf of the people of South Carolina,
Gov. Henry McMaster
Just for a matter of perspective, when the storm hit, we have three million customers, major customers around the state. Three million. Right after the storm, we had 1. 3 million outages. The next day we had 1. 2 million. As of this morning, we're down to less than 900, 000. So we're making progress and it will speed up as we go forward.
Because we're getting those trees out of the roads and off the power lines. Chief Keel. Good afternoon,
Mark Keel, Chief of SLED.
Just want to say that since the beginning of this storm, we've had been in constant contact with all of our law enforcement partners. We'll continue to be in touch with them daily, making sure that they have all the needs they have to keep the community safe.
Again, we are deploying people throughout the state of South Carolina, and we'll continue that. We have deployed people from all over the state, uh, from our coastal areas into the Midlands and to the upstate. And we will continue that along with all of our state law enforcement partners. D. N. R. Triple P.
The highway patrol. So again, sheriffs and chiefs, if they need anything, all they need to do is call us. It slid and we will be there to try to help them and make sure that we keep the public safe during this period of time.
Keller Kissam, president of Dominion Energy
You know, we start with safety and the most important thing is to be safe.
Stay away from downed power lines. Don't go out and try to cut a tree away from a power line. Usually they're under tension. The lines are under tension if they're there on that tree. And when you cut those limbs off it, it lifts up the weight and it's gonna spring back. If it's spring back, it can take your head off.
So be careful. One of the most dangerous things our linemen do is cut trees. So be safe. They've had a number of visits of folks with carbon monoxide poisoning to some of the various hospitals around South Carolina. Do not run a generator inside. Don't have a grill inside. That's not safe. something you need to do outside in that regard.
How are we restoring power? Well, you see that helicopter that is worrying over there. It's got a big saw on the bottom of it. It's already going out on the transmission lines and it's patrolled. Now it's come back to get the saw to cut the trees off those transmission lines. We have to restore transmission.
Then we have to restore the substations. Those are the fenced in areas with the breakers that bring energy to your subdivision. Then we'll focus on the main feeders and we'll get that fill in Stations, the restaurants, the grocery stores back, they're to turn people's lives back to normal. And then when we finish with that, we'll get down into the neighborhoods as well to get everybody back on.
In addition to that, I just wanna say that everybody in this community, from Barnwell to North Augusta, Aiken, all the way up to McCormick, has been wonderful to deal with. They're providing us for lodging and gymnasiums and National Guard armies where we can put our linemen, 'cause we have 1,350. 55 off system resources.
These a linemen that don't work here in South Carolina and they're here. We add that to the 800 that we have that are here every day serving you. And we've got an army. And so you can tilt the state all the way down to Aiken because as everything else is cleaned up, they're all gonna be here on the Savannah River.
And so you're gonna have an army of linemen here that will be feeding and housing, and they'll be working around the clock to restore power here to these communities that we are proud to serve. Our linemen are the product of this. community. They're your neighbors and friends. A lot of them, just like you don't have power, but they're out here working to make sure that you have power and to return your life back to normalcy.
Quick numbers. How many we have out total customers impacted? 404, 000. What was it? Peak 386. 6,000. That tells you some customers out more than once. Where are we right now? 125,000 customers across our entire system. So you do the math. We restored over 300,000 customers power back as we've gone through this process, and we hope to make the same progress in this area that is the most heavily hit.
Keep in mind, Hugo was a category four. It hit Charleston. This was a category four when it hit it Tallahassee. It's energy spread out 450 miles due to math. You were right in the in the in the bullseye of it and understand this. All the damage that you saw from McClellanville to up to Charlotte after Hugo.
This is what you see from Barnwell all the way up to McCormick and then up to Greenville Spartanburg. This is a major storm people will be talking about for a long time. And I hope as they talk about it from here forward is that we all pull together. We all prayed for each other. We all part of each other and it was neighbors helping neighbors.
And we came out here and at the end of it, like everything else, it created endurance. Endurance creates hope and hope gives us a boundless joy. That's what we want to have at the end of this. And God bless you all. We're going to be working for you around the clock. Thank you very much.
Gary Stooksbury, Aiken Electric Cooperative
Thank you, Governor. Uh, and I really appreciate Keller explaining how we get the power back on. We're no different than, than Dominion. Aiken Electric's a little bit smaller, obviously, in scale, but we still have the monumental task that Keller was talking about. To give you an idea at the, uh, height of the storm Friday, we have 29 substations.
We did not have transmission service to 27 of them. There was two substations to the east of us near Orangeburg that was not hit as bad that had station power. So today, uh, thank to our supplier, Santee Cooper, we've got all but one of our substations in service. That substation is in Edgefield County and we have all the resources like Keller from out of state that are working.
Our folks, we've set up obviously a command center and all of our area offices. We have a storm restoration center that we built up in north. We're housing linemen and personnel from out of state to help us with the restoration effort. and we've got a small army, uh, working. We have people sleeping in our offices.
Our, my administrative assistant is sleeping in her office this week. Uh, and our objective is like Keller. We are going to get your lights back on. We asked for your. Patience and please slow down on the roads because they are linemen in harm's way out there that are trying to get your lights back on.
And we just ask for patience and be be cautious out there when you drive. This is not the Darlington 500. So slow down. Thank you.
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson
Thank you, Gov. Henry McMaster and Team Carolina. It's so inspiring to be here and to see the leadership responding to a catastrophe that really was worse than we anticipated.
anticipated Thursday night. I was grateful to be at the emergency preparedness division with Kim Stinson. I saw them getting prepared for the worst and they did and see it coming together today to see the municipal county and state offices coming together. The cooperation the governor is having on the federal level, but incredibly enough, today is the 65th anniversary of Hurricane Gracie hitting at Buford and Charleston.
At that time, it was the Midlands and upstate that came to the rescue of the Low country and to the rescue of the P. D. Now it's exact reverse. And so who would ever imagine a hurricane catastrophe in the upstate of South Carolina? But it's coming together. And I'm also really grateful that, uh, as a representative, Bart Blackwell took me through neighborhoods and I saw the beautiful 100 year old 200 year old oaks that have fallen over.
And so while I was there, I contacted George Sakellar as president of the Amoresco Company in Boston, Massachusetts. We are so fortunate here in Aiken County at the Savannah Riverside, we have one of the world's largest woody biomass conversion to energy facilities in the world. And President Sakellaris has said that he's already begun procedures just as the ice storm 10 years ago.
They are ready to help, uh, and remove the debris. and converted into energy. And so people are really coming together and I'm just so grateful to represent the extraordinary people of bacon in Barnwell County. Thank you. God bless you.
Keller Kissam
The governor, if you see over there, some of your cameras went over there.
He's already patrolled the transmission. There's 16 saw blades, skill saw blades underneath that saw. And I promise you he can put some some limbs and debris on the ground. And so we use that in tandem. So he's observing, but at the same time, he's cutting these pine trees that are laid up in the line and man, it's an efficient way to do it.
Question: Did you send a lot of help to Florida?
Keller Kissam
You know, the media, that's important. You know, everybody gets on social media. I don't have book face or tweeter and I'll just tell you that, you know, there are a lot of rumors. People, people say, well, people take advantage of people like this, but price gouging people take advantage of people when they put ridiculous rumors out there on the web.
And the first thing is with mutual assistance, we got together for our first mutual assistance call on Wednesday before the storm got here on Friday and those that were going to be affected. They put in there. We'd like to have linemen. We want to be sent our way. We got on that call to participate in it with southeastern electric exchange and we were asking for linemen to come to South Carolina.
So maybe people saw bucket trucks going to florida, but they were coming from other northern states that had nothing to be in the path of this. You know, people come up with all kind of things. Somebody said a rumor on social media that our folks were out with, um, you know, we weren't paying our linemen overtime.
So they quit. They're not working anymore. Totally a fabrication. Fair Labor Standards Act. So you just got to avoid all those rumors. Get it from a credible source so that it's fact based instead of rumor based. So we sent no linemen anywhere outside this state. We were just waiting on what's to come. And now we've added those other rumors.
Thirteen-hundred resources so that we can get about the business of returning people's lives back to normal.