Power company prepared for severe weather: 'We added a lot of self-healing technology'
NORTH CAROLINA (WTVD) -- Duke Energy says it's been working throughout the year to upgrade the grid and other steps have been taken to make sure our state is ready for hurricane season.
The power provider opened its new control center less than a year ago.
Duke Energy Spokesperson Logan Stewart says the facility is designed to keep customers' lights on during severe weather.
"We added a lot of self-healing technology to help customers get back online in case they do go off," said Stewart.
The power company's in-house team of meteorologists is now monitoring a new weather system and they're waiting to see the potential impact on Central North Carolina.
People are being encouraged to have an emergency plan in place and to keep items, such as batteries and bottled water, on hand.
"Especially important if you have some elderly family members or those who rely on power for medical needs, just think about an alternative plan for them," said Stewart. "Hopefully, you're not going to have to use it. Hopefully, this storm will be minimal, if anything at all, but it's great to just have that plan because we don't know what any storm can bring."
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Customers can sign up for outage alerts. When a storm hits, you can report an outage or check how long it'll take for a problem to be fixed.
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