Inter-agency Coordination for Rural Power Restoration After A Natural Disaster in the United States: A Qualitative...

In September 2024, Hurricane Helene inflicted unprecedented damage across South Carolina's Upstate and nearby inland counties in North Carolina, causing widespread, prolonged power outages that disproportionately affected rural communities and demanded tightly coordinated action among public utilities, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations to restore electric service. To capture time-sensitive lessons from this response, we collected a qualitative dataset on interagency coordination during power-restoration operations. This data descriptor presents a set of in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in 2025 with key personnel directly involved in the Upstate South Carolina restoration including 21 managers from utilities, governmental bodies, and community organizations. The interviews probe organizational adaptation, interagency alignment, and the emergence of team flow in coordinated restoration. The dataset is intended to help researchers and policymakers understand the complex, ad hoc collaboration that underpins disaster recovery and to provide qualitative context that complements quantitative analyses of infrastructure resilience.