Power crews on alert as heavy rain and severe weather brews in the Atlantic

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Power crews are preparing for potentially severe weather across the state. This comes after nearly 1,500 people were without power in Johnston County on Thursday due to the storm.

“We learn from every storm and every storm teaches us ways to improve our process to get better for the next storm,” said Jeff Brooks, a spokesperson for Duke Energy.

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It comes as the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene sweeps through the area where thousands of people across the state experienced power outages. Brooks said as new systems brew in the Atlantic, crews are monitoring the path of the storms closely and watching the impact it has on the power grid.

“We’ve done a lot of grid strengthening over the last year, and a lot of our communities, including those in western North Carolina,” Brooks said. “We are adding more and more self-healing technology and resiliency tools to restore outages faster when outages occur.”

Brooks recommends that customers have an emergency plan in place if there are power outages during severe weather, especially people who have health conditions that require electricity or refrigerated medications.

If anyone sees Duke Energy crews out making repairs during the storm, officials advise people to give them space to do their jobs safely.