Georgia Power Company customers in the Evans area have reported a series of power outages over the past few weeks. GPC’s Holly Lovett said thunderstorms bear some of the blame.
Lovett checked with Augusta-area managers and learned the outages coincided with a series of thunderstorms and the remnants of Hurricane Ida passing through eastern Georgia.
“What we found is the trees and the weather are the largest cause of those outages on the electrical system in that area,” she said.
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As part of their mutual assistance network, Georgia Power sent 500 company personnel, including line crews, engineers and support staff to Mississippi and Louisiana.
Spokesman John Kraft said sending the assistance to those hard-hit areas did not deplete repair crews available for Georgia customers.
“One of our aims is to make sure we always have enough resources remaining to take care of the day-to-day stuff that happens here,” he said. “It’s not been an issue of having enough resources to respond to the type of the thunderstorms that we’ve been having.”
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Kraft said had the situation become more severe in Georgia, the crews would have been called home. If necessary, the company could then request assistance from the mutual assistance network.
September is National Preparedness Month. Kraft said they have partnered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Georgia Emergency Management Agency to ask people to be prepared in the event of a severe weather event by having an emergency plan. It should include a kit with enough supplies for several days for every person and pet in the home.
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He said customers concerned about a tree or limb that is too close to powerlines can call Georgia Power to report it or notify the company via their Twitter and Facebook accounts.
“We always want people to not try to trim trees themselves,” he said.
Customers can also go to the company website to report an outage and get updates on when the outage will be repaired.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a Staff Reporter with The Augusta Press. You can reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com.
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