NORTH CAROLINA, USA — North Carolina's mountain and foothill communities are bracing for the first significant winter storm of the season , and utility crews say they are preparing for the worst while hoping for the best.

Blue Ridge Energy and NCDOT crews spent Thursday gearing up for snow, sleet and freezing rain expected to move through the region.

“Preparation for us is year-round,” Jacob Puckett with Blue Ridge Energy said.

Puckett says their 60 linemen have fueled trucks, prepped chainsaws and are ready to respond to outages across their 80,000-customer service area.

“One of the big things we see in storms is outages caused by people, so if you see people working on the side of the road — one of our crews — slow down," Puckett said. "A lot of poles get impacted by people driving i

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