Electric Membership Cooperatives (EMCs) Enter Last Stages of Restoration

News provided by

Georgia EMC

Feb 19, 2015, 08:20 ET

TUCKER, Ga., Feb. 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- EMCs have entered the final stages of restoration and restored service to 126,500 customers in northeast Georgia who lost power after a winter storm damaged or destroyed much of the electric distribution system in this part of the state.

At 8 p.m., 7,500 customers remain without power, and EMCs estimate the majority of those will be restored by midnight. However, some outages may take longer based upon the extent of damage and due to widespread and remote locations.

Restoring service following this particular storm has produced its own set of challenges:

  • EMCs experienced a level of damage not seen before in some service areas
  • the number of fallen trees—in the thousands—blocked access to damaged areas and had to be cleared and removed before work could begin
  • the number of remote and widespread locations of many of the outages combined with rough, mountainous terrain, and
  • large land areas served by EMCs and 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)

Since the storm began, EMC crews restored service to nearly 134,000 customers and repaired or replaced spans of power lines and hundreds of broken power poles.

Knowing they faced unique challenges, the electric co-ops called upon every available resource at their respective EMCs plus hundreds of EMC line workers from across the state, private contract crews, additional right-of-way crews, and crews from Virginia, Alabama and Florida.

Damage touched nearly every county in northeast Georgia but was especially severe in Forsyth, Hall, Gwinnett, Lumpkin, Dawson, Cherokee, Jackson, Banks, Barrow, Habersham and White counties.

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, half of Georgia's population, across 73 percent of the state's land area.

SOURCE Georgia EMC

Related Links

http://www.georgiaemc.com

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