Nearly a week without power

Things remain cold and dark at home with outside temperatures dipping to 35 degrees at night.

Nearly a week without power, we continue to spend our evenings stuffing wood into the fireplace and burying ourselves under as many blankets as we can find. Personally, I spend most of the night in the fetal position trying to keep warm by breathing under the sheets.

Power has been restored for nearly all businesses in the Raleigh area and 97 percent of all homes, according to CP&L’s website. So we remain hopeful.

I spent most of the day yesterday hanging out in Barnes & Noble. For those that now have power, life is clearly back to normal for double-lattes are being ordered, kids are running through busy shopping isles, and hours upon hours of Christmas music can be heard in the background over the noise of cash registers completing yet another sale of Harry Potter, John Grisham, or Steven King.

Me? Well, I was simply pleased to have found a good Web Development book, a highly-prized position on one of B&N’s couches, and to waste the day away in the comfort of heat, lights, and nearby restrooms with running water.

Here’s the latest news from CP&L’s website on the much-anticipated return of power.

More than 97 percent of customers now have power

Progress Energy crews have restored power to approximately 97 percent of CP&L customers who lost power during the storm.

As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, outages across the CP&L system totaled 15,225 – down from a peak of 464,000.

In Wake County, remaining customers without service total 3,100 – down from more than 265,000 Friday afternoon.

The hardest hit areas with customers still without power includes the following North Carolina counties: Chatham – 3,610, Vance – 2,347, Granville – 1,943, Warren – 856 and Nash – 730.

Much of the work today is house-to-house service line work, which can be very time consuming. We have a tremendous amount of resources focused in these areas today and expect to get nearly all of those customers restored today.

Rest assured our crews are working as hard as ever – and we will not stop until we have restored power to every single CP&L customer. We will work around the clock until every home has power.

Customers who see that the meter base is damaged or torn from the side of the house should get a licensed electrician to make repairs and have the repairs properly inspected. CP&L cannot complete restoration until the meter base is repaired.

CP&L customers can report outages and receive power restoration estimates through the company’s automated outage reporting system by calling 1-800-419-6356.

We know with the extreme cold, this has been a very difficult time for our customers. We appreciate their patience.