Gov. Cooper asking for report after thousands lose power at Christmas

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Thousands of Duke Energy customers are asking what happened after spending Christmas weekend without power.

Duke Energy says temps were colder than anticipated causing huge demand and equipment failure. In that kind of situation, they would divert energy from another grid, typically out of state. But because this storm was so far-reaching, there was no power to be shared.

At the peak, as many as 200,000 people were without power.

[Duke Energy restores power after temporary outages due to frigid temperatures]

“We recognize certainly that this was an important time for people that we interrupted and that’s very unfortunate we certainly apologize for the inconveniences of that and appreciate their patience and their willingness to conserve energy during a very challenging time,” said Jeff Brooks with Duke Energy.

Yesterday, Governor Roy Cooper Tweeted: “Duke Energy assures me NC is in the clear now. But I’m deeply concerned about people who lost power and who didn’t get notice about rotating outages. Grateful for those who conserved energy. I’ve asked Duke for a complete report on what went wrong and for changes to be made.”

Duke Energy says all storm and cold weather outages are fixed, and customers no longer need to conserve power or worry about rolling blackouts.

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