Banks and credit unions in Moore County, North Carolina, are helping residents maintain financial stability as the lingering effects of a recent attack on local power substations keep the area in the dark.
Reports of outages swept through the county on Saturday night after two locations were damaged by gunfire, leaving more than 40,000 people without electricity or heat.
State Employees' Credit Union in Raleigh, North Carolina, was forced to temporarily close its two branches in Carthage and Southern Pines and is encouraging that members utilize its other channels, which include its mobile platform, telephone help line, website and branch locator tool for in-person transactions, according to Sandra Jones, senior vice president of communications for the $52 billion-asset SECU.
Statewide trade organizations such as the Carolinas Credit Union League have also pledged financial assistance for credit unions, employees and volunteers in need, said Dan Schline, president and chief executive of the League.
"Carolinas Foundation Disaster Relief Grants [under the Carolinas Credit Union Foundation] have helped those who faced financial hardship in the past. … They can do so again should sheltering, displacement or resulting losses pose an excessive burden on our credit union family," Schline said.
Conversely, banks with offices in impacted areas in the state saw little to no effect from the lack of electricity, according to Peter Gwaltney, president and chief executive of the North Carolina Bankers Association in Raleigh.
"If there was a problem, most likely I'd have heard about it," Gwaltney said, adding that Tar Heel State banks have dealt with so many ice storms, hurricanes and other disasters, their redundancy plans are more than robust enough to handle a localized power outage.
For financial institutions in areas prone to natural disasters, including
"Folks, we're living in some challenging times. … Challenging times that I never thought, in my 40 years in law enforcement, we would be seeing," Ronnie Fields, sheriff of Moore county, said during a press conference on Sunday. "We faced something last night here in Moore County that we've never faced before, but I promise you that we will get through this and we'll get through it together."
After a
Duke Energy, a electric power and natural gas holding company in Charlotte, North Carolina, explained that repair crews are pursuing "multiple paths of restoration" to hasten the overall recovery time of its two facilities.
"Unlike a storm, where you can go in and reroute power to somewhere else, that was not an option in this case so repairs have to be completed. … We want citizens to be prepared that this will be a multiday restoration for some customers that could extend as far as Thursday," Jeff Brooks, media spokesperson for Duke Energy, said during the conference.
John Reosti contributed reporting.
