Ashland, KY – June 10, 2021 – The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) yesterday announced Kentucky Power as a recipient of EEI’s Emergency Response Award for the response to the February Ice Storm that left 59,000 customers without power.
Presented to EEI member companies, Emergency Response Awards recognize recovery and assistance efforts of electric companies following service disruptions caused by extreme weather or other natural events. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges following an international nomination process, and the awards were presented during EEI’s virtual Board of Directors meeting.
"Many EEI member companies experienced historic storms and other significant weather-related events in recent months that left customers without power," said EEI President Tom Kuhn. "Mutual assistance is a hallmark of our industry and is critical to ensuring a safe and efficient restoration. Crews worked around the clock and often in the most dangerous of conditions to assess damage and to restore power safely and as quickly as possible. They did all of this during a global pandemic.
"Kentucky Power and its employees went above and beyond for the customers and the communities impacted by the February Ice Storm and they are exceptionally deserving of this outstanding award."
The February weather event that hit Kentucky Power’s territory brought back-to-back ice storms, followed by snow, extensive rain and flooding during a two week restoration period.
"We had more than 2,000 personnel working on restoration for this storm and it took every one of them to make thousands of repairs to damage caused mostly by ice," said Brett Mattison, president and chief operating officer-Kentucky Power. "Our teams worked tirelessly day and night to get every customer restored. We cannot say enough about them, but also the same for our customers for the resilience and patience they exhibited throughout the recovery."
Appalachian Power, Kentucky Power’s sister company, received the same recognition for restoration efforts in West Virginia.
Kentucky Power, with headquarters in Ashland, provides service to about 165,000 customers in 20 eastern Kentucky counties, including Boyd, Breathitt, Carter, Clay, Elliott, Floyd, Greenup, Johnson, Knott, Lawrence, Leslie, Letcher, Lewis, Magoffin, Martin, Morgan, Owsley, Perry, Pike and Rowan. Kentucky Power is an operating company in the American Electric Power (AEP) system. AEP, based in Columbus, Ohio, is focused on building a smarter energy infrastructure and delivering new technologies and custom energy solutions to customers. AEP’s more than 17,000 employees operate and maintain the nation’s largest electricity transmission system and more than 224,000 miles of distribution lines to efficiently deliver safe, reliable power to nearly 5.4 million regulated customers in 11 states, including Kentucky. AEP also is one of the nation’s largest electricity producers with approximately 33,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including 4,200 megawatts of renewable energy. AEP’s companies includes utilities AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power, Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company. AEP also owns AEP Energy.
EEI is the association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies. Our members provide electricity for more than 220 million Americans, and operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. As a whole, the electric power industry supports more than 7 million jobs in communities across the United States. In addition to our U.S. members, EEI has more than 65 international electric companies, with operations in more than 90 countries, as International Members, and hundreds of industry suppliers and related organizations as Associate Members.