A Busy Summer for SEPB

Scottsboro EPB has had a busy summer in 2010. Most notably, we've seen a return to a normal number of thunderstorm days. According to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, Alabama usually experiences 50-70 thunderstorms per year. For whatever reason, from the late 1990's until the mid-2000's, North Alabama had only about half the typical number of thunderstorms. 2010 is closer to a normal year and is causing all sorts of power outages and customer equipment damage. Our crews have been busy restoring damage that these storms cause.

Due to local economy being slow, our Electric crews worked on a substation construction project in recent months. This project called the Alternate 13 KV Source for our Scottsboro Primary TVA delivery point, will enable us to transfer our 13 KV load off the main transformers at that station. Our employees became construction workers reading blueprints, digging footings for structure supports, pouring concrete, installing a grounding grid, running conduit and control cable, and installing electronic control panel boards. I am always amazed and proud of the capability and teamwork of our employees. This was also a great learning experience for our young employees. This $900,000 project was financed out of cash flow and did not require any new long-term debt.

Our Cable employees have also had a busy summer. We are experiencing a good bit of growth in business phone line installations and fiber optic data installations. Our phone partner Knology (based in West Point, Georgia) is doing a great job for us. Knology provides the telephone switching and long distance connections so we can concentrate on customer connections and customer service. My grandparents ran a telephone exchange in Danville, Alabama in the early 1900's, so it is neat for me to be able to participate in providing telephone service to our customers here in Scottsboro. Of course my part was only to get this service available and now stay out of the way!

I also can't say enough about our great office staff. The ladies in the office do a great job working with customers and getting their requests or problems addressed. With 8500 bills sent out each month, 8500 Electric customers, 5500 Cable customers, 3200 Internet customers, 1400 Digital Cable customers, and 1800 Phone customers, I think they do a wonderful job. If you think about it, take a moment and thank a utility employee who serves you everyday so that our community will be a great place to live.