Hurricane Micheal leaves thousands without power

Energy providers across the state in Georgia have been racing to get the power turned back on for thousands of consumers following Hurricane Micheal’s path of destruction.

Nicole Dover, Director of Strategy Execution at Habersham EMC told WRBN/WGHC News that Hurricane Micheal’s strength knocked out more than a few homes when the storm rolled through Habersham and Rabun counties late Wednesday, early Thursday morning. She said teams are currently on the ground working to restore power and repair downed lines which were mostly caused by fallen trees from 30 mph wind gusts.

“Outages are affecting approximately 400 meters in HEMC’s service area this morning. Crews have worked throughout the night and continue restoration efforts this morning,” Dover said. “All are storm-related and most are due to trees making contact with the lines – either by falling limbs or trees hitting the lines, or limbs touching the lines as the trees sway in the wind. With the current focus on vegetation management, these types of outages will be greatly reduced in the future.”

Georgia Power had a more widespread outage which left more than 200,000 customers without power in Georgia and more than 2,700 individual cases of damage (including broken poles and lines) according to Jeff Wilson Georgia Power Corporate Communication.

Once the storm leaves affected areas, Georgia Power must wait until conditions are safe for damage assessment teams to enter the field and begin the restoration process, followed by repair crews, which could take several days, or longer, depending on the amount of damage and safe access to the area. As weather conditions improve, restoration efforts will accelerate, but it could take an extended period of time for all customers to be restored.