A Covington Electric Cooperative line crew will head to Clay Electric Cooperative headquartered in Key Stone Heights, Fla., on Wednesday to help restore power to thousands of co-op members who lost electric service during Hurricane Irma.

Clay Electric is a large cooperative serving 14 counties in north Florida. As of Tues., Sept. 12, about 65 percent of Clay Electric members are without electricity. That’s about 113,000 meters. They have crews coming from Alabama, South Carolina, Nebraska and Wisconsin to assist with their daunting restoration effort in the days ahead.

While the large Category 4 hurricane devastated the Caribbean and Florida Keys, it also caused extensive damage throughout the Florida Peninsula, knocking out power to millions of residents.

“The CEC service area only experienced a few scattered outages as the hurricane weakened to a tropical storm by the time it impacted our area,” said Ed Short, CEC general manager. “As soon as we knew our system was clear, we committed seven employees and equipment including two bucket trucks and a digger truck to help our co-op neighbor in Florida. This is what co-ops do in times of need. We band together and work to get power back on as quickly and safely as possible for cooperative members,” he added.