MARSHALL, N.C. (WLOS) — Duke Energy is making progress. As of Tuesday, October 8, nearly 84,000 customers were still without power, but another 2.6 million customers were back.

On Tuesday morning, crews completed construction of a third temporary substation near Marshall, restoring power to nearly 1,000 Madison County customers who had intermittent power over the last week.

“Come in,” Cassie Franklin said as the front door of the Smokey Mountain Diner opened.

It’s been 11 days since she uttered that sentence.

“Are you taking it to-go or eating it in?” Franklin asked a customer who came in.

The diner, a Hot Springs staple for 30 years, had new energy as of Tuesday after the storm caused intermittent outages and closed the diner for the past 10 days.

“It feels like a lifetime ago for us because here we’re open six days a week and then there are people we see every day that we haven’t seen in a while,” Franklin said.

DUKE ENERGY SHOWS HELENES SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO THE SUBSTATION AS TEAMS WORK TO RESTORE POWER

The outage cost the restaurant thousands in spoiled food.

The loss of food is nothing compared to the loss of life,” said Franklin, who has worked in friends’ kitchens to feed the community.

Now they’re happy that the open sign is lit and there’s warm food on the table.

“Can I get you anything else?” Franklin asked.

But not every Hot Springs business is ready. Others need a new foundation or more after Spring Creek overflows its banks. It will take some time until the city center is ready for electricity connection.

It will take a while. They must be rebuilt before they can have power,” said Duke Energy spokesman Bill Norton.

The restoration of the Marshall substation means the lights will be on for an additional 1,000 customers in Madison County.

However, it is the variety of repairs that poses a challenge for Duke Energy. In Black Mountain and Swannanoa, the entire transmission infrastructure must be rebuilt.

DUKE ENERGY uses helicopters to fly in utility poles for repairs

“It requires more manpower, more modifications to core lines and transmission lines… Normally we would be done with the restoration process by now,” Norton said.

Counties in the north need power poles. A delivery was on the way.

“We have communities we can’t reach right now, so we’re flying in new utility poles by helicopter,” Norton said.

DUKE ENERGY: “NOT JUST RODS, BUT THE WIRES… IT’S THE TRANSMISSION INFRASTRUCTURE”

As Hurricane Milton rages across the Gulf, another Duke Energy community, Tampa, is bracing for a potentially similar hit. But mountain dwellers shouldn’t worry because the resources will remain intact.

We’ll be fighting a two-front battle, if you will, but we have separate resources down in Florida. “We will continue to be fully staffed here in Western North Carolina,” Norton said.

On Tuesday, Duke Energy announced that it would set up a command center in western North Carolina to serve as the company’s base of operations while workers continue to build the necessary infrastructure until, at the end, everyone is ready for the Smokey Mountain Diner are warm meals.

We just want to be a light for the community. We want to be able to help them,” Franklin said.

Duke Energy also set up its own division websiteProviding the latest information and resources to impacted customers in Western North Carolina. The site currently contains a map of repair and reconstruction zones, frequently asked questions and answers, and more.