BGE: Power restored to all gas and electric customers following Monday's storm
WESTMINSTER -- Power has been restored to all Baltimore Gas and Electric customers impacted by a strong storm Monday.
The storm brought swaths of damage through parts of central Maryland, which caused 132,000 customers to lose power.
About 10,200 of those BGE customers lost power near the area of Route 140 after over 30 poles were damaged from straight-line winds, according to the utility company.
On Friday, a helicopter helped crews rebuild the system infrastructure along the major thoroughfare in Westminster.
The helicopter pulled a rope called a "lead line" through attachments on newly installed power poles, BGE stated.
From there, crews attached a new transmission line to one end of the rope and pulled the other end to set the new line in place.
Using a helicopter for this phase of the project speeds up the process, BGE stated.
Service for all customers impacted by the storm damage was restored permanently or with a temporary solution. Those who are a part of the temporary solution to turn the power back on will have their service permanently moved to a newly rebuilt infrastructure in the middle of next week, BGE explained.
"That is an extraordinarily complicated restoration job. It is catastrophic damage," Nick Alexopulos said earlier this week. "We talked to our crews and they said it's something if you work at BGE your entire career, you may see once."
The downed power poles and lines caused more than just outages. Overall, 33 adults and 14 children were rescued after 34 cars became trapped in fallen powerlines on Route 140, according to Maryland State Police.
BGE worked to de-energize and ground the lines before safely evacuating people. Their cars were later towed away from the scene.
The utility company said in total, 3,000 BGE employees and 1,700 contractors along with mutual assistance personnel helped return customers to the grid.
