Kentucky experienced two “one-hundred-year storms” in a span of less than 5 months: Hurricane Ike hammered West Kentucky’s territory in September 2008, and in January 2009, a severe ice storm struck – causing $240 million in damage to jurisdictional utilities alone.
West Kentucky Electrical Co-operative (WKREC) was already in the process of a pilot evaluation of 10 RS poles when disaster struck. These high-performance RS poles went undamaged in the storm, and even carried the load of a neighboring steel pole when it collapsed. The superior resiliency and reliability demonstrated here provided unyielding confidence in RS poles – which are now used in the WKREC’s highest priority sections of their grid, including carrying the lines out of a new substation and a new 69kV transmission line.
RS composite poles have now become the preferred solution at many utilities that are faced with increasing natural disasters including damaging high winds and ice storms.