Rock Hill residents waiting for power to be restored days after storm knocked down 60 utility poles

Savannah Rudicel
·2 min read
Rock Hill residents waiting for power to be restored days after storm knocked down 60 utility poles

ROCK HILL, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Utility crews in Rock Hill spent Monday working nearly around the clock to restore power from Saturday’s damaging storms.

At the height of the outage, city officials said more than 7,000 people did not have electricity. By Monday night, 600 people were still without power. They told Queen City News the strong winds knocked down around 60 utility poles and caused dozens of separate outages.

Line workers from Newberry, Gaffney, Union, Clinton, Orangeburg, Bamberg, Laurens, Easley, Northstar and co-op York Electric assisted with the restoration effort.

Officials provide real-time outage updates with their interactive map. They ask any resident who does not see their neighborhood listed to report outages by calling 803-329-5500.

Wayne Baxter was one of the people who was told his home would not have power until at least Tuesday. He said he doesn’t mind being patient.

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“It’s going to be a minute, but you can’t rush it because somebody else might get hurt,” Baxter said.

He said he still has hot water and can cook meals outside on his grill. He said he’s very thankful the damage to his home and neighborhood was not worse.

“You’re thinking it just happened to you, and then you see it happened to so many other people,” he said. “So, we all collaborated together, people going around with their chainsaws trying to help everybody else out. The main thing is nobody around this neighborhood got hurt, and that’s a blessing.”

Wayne Baxter said the storm cleanup is a true community effort.
Wayne Baxter said the storm cleanup is a true community effort.

Homeowners who live less than five minutes from Baxter’s street celebrated their power coming back on around 4:30 p.m. Monday.

“It’s been a crazy couple of days,” said neighbor Tony Bizakis.

Bizakis said he and several of his neighbors worked Saturday and Sunday night to clear fallen trees from their street to make a path for first responders and utility crews.

“There’s still a lot of good in this country,” he said. “And certainly, I witnessed a lot of that this past weekend.”

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