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Approximately 100 Georgia Power Personnel and Crews Return Home after Assisting with Hurricane Laura Restoration

Staff Report

Wednesday, September 9th, 2020

Georgia Power crews returned home after spending more than a week in Louisiana assisting with restoration after Hurricane Laura made landfall along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Approximately 100 personnel and crews left from across the state to make their way to staging locations in Baton Rouge before receiving assignments to support restoration in Louisiana.
 
During their time in Louisiana, crews worked safely restoring power for thousands of customers. As part of the storm restoration effort, teams replaced approximately 217 broken poles, 932 spans of wire and 180 transformers. 
 
“We recognize the hard work of our dedicated teams who safely served in Louisiana, and welcome them home,” said David Maske, storm center operations manager. “Through the Mutual Assistance Network, we know that we can assist others and they will be there in return if we need them. Our teams saw firsthand Hurricane Laura’s impact to the state of Louisiana, and we want to encourage Georgia Power customers to prepare now and remain vigilant as an already active hurricane season continues through November.”
 
Mutual Assistance Network
Georgia Power assists other utilities through a mutual assistance network comprising hundreds of utilities from around the country. As part of this partnership, Georgia Power is able to respond and offer assistance, providing reinforcements when needed to restore power quickly for other utilities. The company is also able to tap into this mutual assistance network if additional resources are needed to help restore power to Georgia Power customers following a major storm.
 
With each request for assistance, the company ensures that it has sufficient coverage to respond to any potential local service interruptions.
 
The company requested and received assistance from other utilities during several major storms that impacted Georgia Power customers previously including Hurricanes Michael and Irma.
 
Hurricane season continues through November
With the official hurricane season continuing through November 30, Georgia Power reminds customers to keep safety first and offers the following storm preparedness tips: 
 

  • Before a Storm:  Know your risks of storm surge and tropical storm or hurricane strength winds. Check your emergency kit, unplug major appliances and charge cell phones in case you lose power.

  • During a Storm: Have several ways to receive emergency notifications and weather updates. If your area is under an evacuation order, follow safety orders from local officials immediately.

  • After a Storm: Never touch any downed or low-hanging wire, including telephone or TV wires that touch a power line. Never pull tree limbs off power lines or enter areas with debris or downed trees as downed power lines may be buried in wreckage. Additionally, do not walk or drive through standing water as it may conceal live wires brought down by the storm.  

Before severe weather strikes, customers are encouraged to become familiar with Georgia Power’s Outage Map onwww.georgiapower.com that makes tracking and reporting outage information on the go even easier. The Outage Map automatically adjusts to function on any desktop, handheld or mobile device and has direct access to Georgia Power’s social media channels for quick engagement with customer service representatives. Additionally, users have greater search capabilities with concise alert information relating to their specific outage.

Additional Georgia Power Tools You Can Use

  • Outage Alerts: Subscribe to the free Georgia Power Outage Alert service to receive personalized notifications and updates via text message.

  • Outage & Storm Center: At www.georgiapower.com/storm, customers can sign up for Outage Alerts, report and check the status of outages, and access useful safety tips and information. Customers can also report and check the status of an outage 24 hours a day by contacting Georgia Power at 888-891-0938.

  • Georgia Power Mobile App: Download the Georgia Power mobile app for Apple and Android devices to access storm and outage information on the go.

  • @GeorgiaPower on Twitter: Follow @GeorgiaPower on Twitter for storm tips, outage updates, customer service and more.