Dorian was the first major hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season, and is regarded as the worst ever natural disaster to hit the Bahamas. On 1 September, the Category 5 hurricane slammed into the Abaco Islands with wind speeds of 295 km/h. The damage was catastrophic.
Preparing for the worst, the U.S. states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia declared a state of emergency and issued evacuation orders. On Friday 6 September, Dorian finally made landfall as a Category 1 storm in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina – only 60 miles away from our North America Sales Director Tim McLaughlin – and caused a power outage affecting 190,000 people.
Rapid delivery of SICON screw connectors
Two days later, McLaughlin received a call requesting an urgent delivery of SICON screw connectors. These are ideally suited to connecting all kinds of copper or aluminium cables, solid or stranded, for voltages up to 245 kV and conductor cross-sections of 16-400 mm² – so they are also ideal for quick repairs to storm-damaged power lines. Although the worst was over, Tim had to drive the whole way through flooded streets, dodging debris and toppled trees, to deliver the connectors as fast as he could. Simple handling and reliable installation then enabled the customer to restore service swiftly to the local community by replacing failed cables with pre-made cables connected with Sicon 2-hole NEMA lugs. This is one more reason why the energy supplier uses proven SICON screw connectors by Pfisterer in all conceivable application scenarios