BENECO’s lines hurdle typhoon Pepito

By LAARNI S. ILAGAN

The lines of BENECO hurdled Pepito’s gale-force wind and torrential rains, giving the cooperative a sigh of relief as no major damages were incurred.

The linemen have been deployed full force today as they were forced to stay put last night when Pepito dumped its strongest rains, making restoration efforts dangerous.

“As of 8 this morning, majority of troubles that BENECO linemen were sent to fix are those reports of no lights and other concerns, Ramel Rifani, Network Services Department (NSD) manager, said.

This includes fixing a damaged pole somewhere in Atok, he said.  A heavy maintenance team composed of 10 linemen left very early for Cattubo, Atok, Benguet to replace the pole.

“Bumanesbes angin. Agsal-sala diay poste ken wires, narigat nga tiliwen ken makita” (the posts and power cables were dancing/swaying, it was difficult to grasp and see what we were supposed to work on),” was the common description of the linemen of the situation last night when typhoon Pepito’s surge was felt.

As of this writing, about 82.7% of the electricity at the household level and 72.4% at the barangay level for Baguio City and Benguet has been restored.

The recorded damages as of 8 AM was P55,441.97. The damages came mostly from damaged primary cables in Baguio City and the damaged pole in Atok. The figure though could increase as more reports of damages were coming in this morning. ***(LSI)