FEMA Should Recover $7.5 Million of the $43.2 Million Public Assistance Grant Awarded to Craighead Electric Cooperative Corporation, Arkansas

The Cooperative, a non-profit rural electric cooperative, began operations in 1937 with 75 miles of power lines. It currently has three offices, serves eight counties in northeast Arkansas, maintains more than 4,700 miles of power lines, and provides electricity to more than 27,000 customers. The 2009 winter storm coated power lines and trees with ice. The added weight of the ice on power lines and trees damaged or destroyed roughly 8,000 utility poles throughout the Cooperative’s service area (see figure 1). These damaged or destroyed utility poles caused power outages to approximately 25,000 of the Cooperative’s customers.