EMCs Outages Continue to Drop

TUCKER, Ga. – At 3 p.m., EMCs report approximately 67,000 customers without power primarily in south and southwest Georgia. This is down from 90,000 yesterday, and 130,000 on Friday. 

Throughout the day, Georgia Transmission Corp. crews and EMC crews continued work on both high voltage transmission and distribution systems in some of the most rural parts of the state. Remote locations, widespread outages and hundreds of downed trees, power lines and power poles have proven especially difficult following Hurricane Michael.

Added to that, the affected EMCs serve enormous land areas and have far fewer consumers per mile of line (an average of 10) compared with investor owned utilities (average of 34) and publicly owned utilities, or municipals (with an average of 48). 

Crews will work well into the night; however, for safety reasons, they will be brought back to get adequate rest. They will be back on the job before daybreak to continue the difficult work of restoring power. 

Note to media: Updated outage information can be found throughout the day on Georgia EMC’s web site at https://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