Power restoration efforts continue across Georgia as the region recovers from Hurricane Helene. While Northeast Georgia was not as hard hit as Central and East Georgia and parts of the Carolinas, debris still litters the roadways, trees and power lines in some areas are still down, and thousands of people in the region remain without power.
Georgia Power and the state’s electric co-ops continue working to restore electricity to homes and businesses.
As of 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29, Georgia Power reported that around 406,000 customers statewide were still without power, and Georgia EMCs reported another 246,000. Approximately 6,878 affected by outages are in Northeast Georgia, down from 34,000 Saturday morning.
Most of Northeast Georgia’s remaining outages are in Elbert, Franklin, Habersham, Hart, Rabun, and Stephens. Only a few scattered outages remained in White County as of 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29.
HEMC says crews making ‘great progress’
Habersham EMC, which services Habersham, Hall, Lumpkin, Rabun, Stephens, and White counties released a statement Sunday evening saying crews are “making great progress.” The local co-op says it’s on track to fully restore all power outages in its service area by 11 p.m. Sept. 29.
HEMC deployed 250 personnel, including crews from outside co-ops assisting with restoration efforts. They’ve spent the days since Hurricane Helene replacing dozens of broken power poles and clearing away mounds of debris and downed trees.
Hart EMC earlier in the weekend acknowledged members’ frustrations, adding, “Rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to expedite this process.” On Sunday, the co-op announced it had restored electricity to most of its members, with around 3,000 left to be resolved.
“We are working as quickly and safely as possible,” Hart EMC says.
Georgia Power
Georgia Power says it has restored service to approximately 690,000 customers since the start of the storm. The state’s largest utility credits its “rapid response” to its new “smart grid” technologies and the quick work of pre-positioned teams who were ready to respond as soon as conditions were safe to do so on Friday.
“Crews continue to navigate treacherous conditions including extensive tree and flooding damage, as well as road closures,” the company says in a statement released Sunday. “As of midday Sunday, efforts are fully underway to restore power to approximately 425,000 customers who remain without power due to the storm.”
Still, Georgia Power cautions customers that more outages could occur “due to the saturated ground and weakened trees.”
According to Georgia Power, Hurricane Helene was the most destructive hurricane the utility has ever had to contend with, damaging infrastructure across the state. Initial damage estimates include repairing or replacing over 5,000 power poles, 9,000 spans of wire (equivalent to 425 miles), and over 500 transformers. In addition, Georgia Power crews have had to remove over 1,500 trees from power lines.
As of Sunday, restoration efforts have been largely completed in areas such as Metro Atlanta, Columbus, Macon, Rome, and Albany, while work continues in the hardest-hit areas across the state, including Rabun County.
Georgia Power continues to utilize additional resources from outside of its system and currently has more than 15,000 personnel engaged in response, including support from Alabama Power, Mississippi Power and dozens of other companies.
“The response force currently engaged is larger than the company’s response to other major hurricanes including Michael, Irma and Zeta,” says Georgia Power spokesperson Amanda Arnold.
Outage maps
Georgia Power and Georgia EMC regularly update online customer power outage maps.
The Georgia EMC outage map can be found at www.georgiaemc.com/outages. To report power outages and gain more detailed restoration updates, members should contact their local EMC provider or visit their website and social media pages.
Links to local EMCs are available through the Georgia EMC website or click here.
For Georgia Power outage information, visit www.georgiapower.com/about/grid-reliability/outage-information.html.
