Rural restoration and rebuilding presents unique challenges
Like all electric cooperatives, Great Lakes Energy’s roots are in serving the people who live in rural areas.
Electric cooperatives were born in these less-populated areas in the 1930s when farmers and other residents banded together to bring electric service to remote areas that for-profit utilities refused to serve. Because of this, all of our service area is rural and sometimes very remote.
While we love the wide-open spaces that make up our service area as much as you do, serving these regions comes with its own unique set of challenges – especially during storm restoration. Here are two examples:
Rugged and remote terrain
GLE has more than 14,000 miles of distribution lines spanning portions of 26 counties from north of Kalamazoo to the Mackinac Bridge. Many of these lines are not easily accessible along main roads. In fact, many of our lines aren’t along roads at all. Some are in the woods, across fields, on hills, in swamps, and many other hard-to-reach locations making accessing and repairing these poles and lines especially challenging.
Our commitment to our members runs deep
But just like our members, your electric cooperative is resilient and resourceful. We are using a combination of specialized equipment, job-specific know-how, and hard work by our dedicated team to overcome these unique challenges.
We are driven and inspired in our work by the same sense of neighbor helping neighbor that makes our communities resilient during challenging times. Our employees don’t just work here — they live here too. Many are also GLE members whose families have been affected by these storms, too. We’re your neighbors, your family, your friends — and we’re proud to serve the communities we call home.
That’s why we remain 100 percent focused on restoring power to all of our members as quickly and safely as possible, and we won’t stop until that job is done.
