Haley asks SC to limit electricity

This week's ice event has landed its second punch in the Upstate as the coldest nights of the winter are upon us — prompting South Carolina's governor to ask the public to use as little electricity as possible and disrupting school schedules for a third day.

"Our state will experience the coldest weather of the season with wind chills near zero degrees, and we encourage everyone to manage through this challenge together," Gov. Nikki Haley said Wednesday.

Duke Energy is asking customers to keep thermostats on the lowest bearable settings and to put off electricity-draining activities like household chores until the region can emerge this weekend from single-digit lows.

The frigid temperatures — combining with wind gusts that will plunge wind chill factors below zero this morning and even lower on Friday — put heavy demand on the electricity grid as customers use more energy to keep warm.

"While Duke Energy has sufficient generation resources to meet its customers' energy needs, conditions can change quickly and customers need to be prepared," said Nelson Peeler, vice president of transmission system operations. "A little bit of conservation from each of us will help to make sure we have enough electricity for all of us."

Public schools in Greenville, Pickens, Oconee and Anderson counties will operate on a two-hour delay today because of the cold.

The plea to conserve came as Duke and other utilities raced to restore power as night fell Wednesday.

The utilities made progress on Wednesday, returning service to thousands whose power was knocked out by up to half an inch of ice accumulation earlier this week.

All but a handful in Greenville County were restored. Numbers in the hardest-hit area, Anderson County — for days seeing more than 20,000 outages — were down to a few hundred by sundown.

Duke spokesman Lee Freedman said the company was confident power could be restored across its grid by the stated goal of 11 p.m. Wednesday, but he said that high winds tonight will make bringing the last households online difficult and could impact trees weakened by the weight of ice before it melted.

"The high winds do present a lot of danger," Freedman said. "That along with cold temperatures may create some challenges out in the field. There might be some isolated outages."

The National Weather Service extended its wind chill warning for the Upstate through 10 a.m. Friday.

Temperatures are expected to drop to 10 degrees overnight but the wind chill could hit 2 below zero with 10 to 15 mile per hour winds and gusts as high as 30 mph, according to the Weather Service advisory. Temperatures on Thursday are forecast to hit 25 degrees with sunny skies.

The coldest the wind chill will get on Thursday will be 14 degrees at 2 p.m., said meteorologist Doug Outlaw said.

Friday morning's actual temperature is forecast to dip to 6 degrees, but the wind chill is forecast at 3 below zero, he said.

Reporter Nathaniel Cary contributed to this story.