From the Board of Trustees

As the holiday season approaches, most families are planning elaborate dinners, trips to visit relatives, late-night shopping sprees and football-watching marathons, among other things.

There are several people in our local area preparing for just another day at work. These are the people who provide vital services for our community, everything from staffing our local hospitals, to answering 9-1-1 calls, to keeping our streets safe.

And of course, responding to power outages.

Unfortunately, outages don’t take weekends or holidays off. They don’t pay much attention to the time, nor do they care if dinner is on the table or a big game is on TV. They happen when they happen, and our crews must respond when they do. That might mean leaving family functions early or missing the end of a movie. Because getting our members’ power flowing means getting their lives back to normal – the sooner the better.

In addition to the line crews who respond to outages, Baldwin EMC also has a dedicated department of people who are constantly monitoring our service area. They’re our power system controllers, and at least one of them is monitoring the system 24 hours a day, seven days a week – holidays, nights and weekends included.

Baldwin EMC has a proactive maintenance program that seeks to prevent outages. We manage vegetation growth around our equipment, and we build poles and lines to rigorous standards of reliability. Despite all these efforts, though, some things like severe weather, vehicle accidents or animals damaging equipment (we’re talking about you, squirrels), are out of our control.

What we can control is how much of an impact they have on our community and on our members. Th at means having crews on call, ready to respond at a moment’s notice.

As a result, our 2018 survey data reveals that members rank Baldwin EMC’s success of “keeping outages to a minimum” at 93%, and “quickly restoring power” at 90%. Additionally, our reliability in 2018 was 97.9% which translates to an average of 58.74 minutes per member for the year. These are benchmarks we’re dedicated to safely maintaining and continuing to improve upon.

So, as you enjoy the special times ahead with your family, we ask that you keep in mind all of those for whom it’ll just be “business as usual.” And please practice safety out on the roads, so that you don’t tragically become the reason emergency personnel have to be on the scene of an accident during the holidays.

If you’re one of those individuals who’ll be at work on Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s, thank you for your commitment to serving this community. You have our respect and admiration.