Kentucky Cooperative Rebounds from Direct Tornado Hit

On the night of May 16–17, a fast-moving storm cut a swath of destruction across southern Kentucky, downing trees and utility poles, knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses, and spawning several tornadoes that created more damage as they whirled through the service territories of Jackson Energy Cooperative and South Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation (SKRECC).

In the middle of the storm, an EF4 tornado—the second most powerful on the tornado scale, with wind speeds up to 200 mph—slammed into SKRECC’s headquarters building, destroying it, while damaging the cooperative’s large warehouse next door.

“Nearly 27,000 of our 70,000 accounts were without power after the storm moved through,” SKRECC President and CEO Kevin Newton said. “We replaced over 250 broken poles, and miles of downed power lines had to be repaired. The area near our headquarters saw substantial damage to mostly commercial buildings—which is a blessing since the area is surrounded by residential housing. We were also fortunate that we only had a few cooperative-owned vehicles damaged, but there were five employees with damage to personal vehicles. No employees were injured.”

SKRECC’s dispatch center and outage systems were also knocked offline, but the cooperative was able to get them up and running again quickly.  

“The storm took out power to our headquarters, while our backup generator, which ran on natural gas, was unable to be used to power our server room and dispatch center due to gas leaks,” Newton explained. “That left us without any network or phone connections. We relocated our servers to a district office temporarily to bring our systems back up for outage restoration, billing and service orders. That took less than 48 hours.”

Fortunately, when the HQ building was constructed in 2017, the dispatch center was housed in a section of the building with reinforced concrete walls and ceiling. That helped save the life of an overnight dispatcher who was in the building tracking the storm. 

“It is not common for businesses to have hardened areas like this, but for a cooperative, the operations all go through dispatch, which makes it critical during storms,” Newton said.

The loss of the HQ building has impacted operations, but SKRECC is managing through the dislocation.  

The cooperative’s operations continue as normal, but its employees are spread out in several different locations due to the loss of its HQ building. Some administrative employees and its dispatch center are now located downtown, and its payment center staff are in a nearby mall space that was a county clerk’s office. All its services are available to members, except for the rental of a community room space that was lost with the HQ building’s destruction.

Immediately following the storm, several electric cooperatives from Georgia sent crews to help with outage restoration, while SKRECC also hired a large number of contract crews.

In late July, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that the affected counties would be eligible for FEMA public assistance. “That allows our cooperative and other public agencies, like the county government, to receive a substantial percentage of their costs as reimbursement through FEMA,” Newton said.

On July 9, the remains of the former HQ building were demolished. SKRECC has been meeting with architects to plan the design for the replacement building.  

“We will be rebuilding at the same location with a similar square footage, but we have been working on a one-story design that we feel will provide better efficiency for our operations and be a little easier for our members that use our drive through and come into our lobby area,” Newton said.

The rebuild is expected to take about 18 months, and insurance is expected to cover the majority of the cost.

SKRECC also has been discussing repair costs and options for the warehouse and other buildings on-site that were damaged. 

“The warehouse and other out-buildings at the HQ site will be repaired over the next six months,” Newton said. “There are several twisted beams that have to be repaired before the interiors can be finished.” 

Since the storm hit, CFC has been in contact with the cooperative to provide any assistance needed. As a show of support, this Veterans Day, which is also SKRECC’s annual Safety Day, CFC will visit the site and provide lunch to all SKRECC employees.

“The assistance and support of the community during and after the tornado has been amazing to see,” Newton said. “Our employees have been through quite a challenging period, and the generosity and support are greatly appreciated.”