EMCs Hammer Away at Outages

TUCKER,  Ga.  –  At 3 p.m., electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) are reporting 129,000 members without power, down from 210,000 at the peak of Hurricane Michael. Since late Tuesday, EMCs have restored electric service to 81,000 members.

During the past 36 hours EMCs have made great strides to repair and in some cases completely rebuild portions of the transmission and distribution network. Hundreds of EMC linemen are focused on power restoration at this time, from Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia and South Carolina thus far and may increase in the days ahead.

EMCs stress that the damage inflicted by Michael was some of the worst destruction Georgia has seen in decades, and the restoration process will take multiple days, up to a week and possibly more in some rural areas of the state. 

The severity of damage to transmission assets is making restoration efforts especially daunting.  High voltage transmission lines and substations – the critical link between power generation and EMC distribution - must be repaired before lights can come back on in homes, businesses and other local facilities.  At the height of the storm nearly 100 substations serving EMCs were out of service.  This morning that number had been cut in half.  More than 30 transmission lines are still being addressed.  

Georgia Transmission Corporation has crews across the impacted area working diligently to restore transmission facilities. Accessing these essential assets is proving difficult because of the magnitude of the impacted area across difficult terrain. In many cases crews are literally cutting their way in through fallen trees and debris because the soft soil in the primarily agricultural land in rural areas impedes heavy equipment. Drones and helicopters are being used to aid the recovery. 

EMC crews are also encountering thousands of downed trees and limbs and hundreds of damaged or destroyed power poles and power lines. The average time to replace a broken distribution pole is four hours, which is a good example of why restoration times have been and will be lengthy for many members.

Note to media: Outage information will be updated throughout the afternoon/evening on Georgia EMC’s web site athttps://georgiaemc.com/page/outages. The next written update is scheduled for 5 a.m. tomorrow.

Georgia EMC  is the statewide trade association representing the state’s 41 EMCs, Oglethorpe Power Corp., Georgia Transmission Corp. and Georgia System Operations Corp.  Collectively, Georgia’s customer-owned EMCs provide electricity and related services to 4.4 million people, nearly half of Georgia’s population, across 73 percent of the state’s land area. To learn more, visit www.georgiaemc.com and follow us on  Facebook  and  Twitter.

Georgia Transmission Corporation plans, builds and maintains more than 3,100 miles of high-voltage powerlines and 650 substations that deliver electric power to 38 electric membership corporations (EMCs) across the state. Georgia Transmission and our member EMCs are not-for-profit cooperatives that serve approximately 4.1 million people in nearly 70 percent of the state’s land area. See www.gatrans.com

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