Overnight, severe storms swept through SECO Energy’s service area and parts of Ocala were hard hit – including Marion Oaks.  Crews reported 40 separate outages in the Ocala area alone.  Feeders supplying power to more than 2,200 members from the SummerGlen substation were both disrupted. Fire departments immediately began reporting numerous trees, poles and lines down.

Crews worked to restore the largest feeders affected first to most quickly impact the largest number of members. The first feeder was restored at 9:30 p.m. and the second at 10:24 p.m. – resulting in nearly 2,200 of the more than 3,000 members affected to have power again.

Overnight, additional crews and tree contractors were called in.  Conditions remain challenging with trees down that caused major infrastructure damage – meaning many spans of line were down and numerous broken and downed poles.  The SECO Energy crews and contractors have not stopped working to restore the remaining services.

At 6 a.m. Sunday morning, 425 members remain without power – all in the Marion Oaks area.  All outages have been investigated and there are ten outages either with crews already at the location or awaiting trees to be cleared to restore power. Three of the remaining outages require pole replacements and those will take some time this morning. Now in the light of day, it appears there may have been tornado activity, as the tops of trees are twisted in the area.

SECO Energy thanks its members for their patience and understanding during this significant weather event.  Many members stayed up-to-date on social media, many used its online map on secoenergy.com to report outages and the company encourages members to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for the latest details.