In July of 2017, residents, businesses, and tourists on the Orcacoke and Hatteras Islands of North Carolina lost power for almost two weeks after construction on the Bonner Bridge resulted in a severed a cable, causing a state of emergency and mandatory evacuation of the islands. New River Electrical Corp. crews quickly came to help Cape Hatteras Electrical Cooperative restore power.
Proactive Electrical Engineering
New River Electrical was also part of the project to rebuild Bonner Bridge, engineering an improved system to protect the cables from the elements and any future construction projects with the hopes of preventing similar widespread outages in the future. Led by Project Manager Morgan Meyers and Supervisor Tim Daniels, the project took approximately five months due to the multitude of construction crews working on the bridge simultaneously. The NRE crew laid 66,000 ft. of 115 kV high voltage cable on the underside of the bridge, using conduit as protection from the elements.
As always, safety was the number one priority on this job, considering the the height above the waters of the Pamlico Sound. Using barges, cranes, and suspended scaffolding, the cables were successfully installed with no accidents or injuries.
In January of 2019, the crew completed work on the new Bonner Bridge in the Cape Hatteras area with only a few minor outages during the transfer of power. The new underground transmission substation is expected to hold up against the unique environmental elements of the location and provide continuous power to the islands.
