ElectriCities Celebrates Electric Lineworkers, Our Hometown Heroes

RALEIGH, N.C. (April 10, 2025) — ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc., celebrates and honors electric lineworkers all year, especially during Lineworker Appreciation Days in April.

Monday, April 14, is North Carolina Lineworker Appreciation Day, and Friday, April 18, is National Lineworker Appreciation Day. Both days are designated to uplift the professionals who keep the electricity on in our communities.

“We expect electricity to flow with the flip of a switch, but we would be left in the dark without the critical work electric lineworkers perform,” said ElectriCities CEO Roy Jones. ElectriCities is the membership organization that provides power supply and related critical services to over 90 community-owned electric systems in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia—collectively known as public power.

In North Carolina, public power lineworkers keep the power flowing for nearly 1.3 million people in more than 70 public power cities and towns throughout the state. Across the nation, public power lineworkers support about 2,000 municipalities, serving one out of every seven Americans.

“Often living in the communities they serve, lineworkers dedicate their skills and hard work to ensuring that we can all enjoy the comforts of modern life—from life-saving heating and air conditioning to a child’s nightlight shining in the dark,” said Jones.

Lineworkers’ dedication doesn’t end at the edges of their communities. When the need arises, public power lineworkers travel across the state and the country within a mutual aid network to help fellow public power lineworkers restore power after disasters and other emergencies.

“Take Hurricane Helene for example,” said Craig Batchelor, Manager of Safety & Training at ElectriCities. “When that historic storm struck, public power lineworkers across the ElectriCities membership traveled to hard-hit areas to help local lineworkers get the power back on.”

These first responders light the way for other first responders. They bring the initial sign of recovery to an area hit by disaster.

Lineworkers do all this with an unwavering commitment to safety protocols. Lineworkers in ElectriCities member cities and towns regularly participate in safety training and career development programs like ElectriCities’ Apprenticeship Program.

Thanks in part to the dedication of public power lineworkers, public power customers enjoy more reliable electricity than customers of other types of utilities. On average, public power utilities resolve outages 52% quicker than other utilities, according to the latest report from the American Public Power Association. They’re 41% quicker on average than other utilities following a major event like a hurricane.

North Carolina public power customers enjoy even better reliability, with outages lasting only a third as long as customers of other providers. The state’s public power lineworkers keep the power on 99.99% of the time. That means, on average, North Carolina’s public power customers experience less than one outage a year that lasts less than one hour.

“It’s clear that lineworkers help power our lives,” said Jones. “I’m proud to celebrate the contributions of these hometown heroes today and every day.”