The number of Georgia homes and businesses without power dropped below 100,000 on Friday for the first time since Tropical Storm Irma roared into the state.
The storm had knocked out power to about 1.5 million customers in the state on Monday, more than a third of them in metro Atlanta.
By Friday afternoon, the state’s utilities reported that 80,500 customers remained without power, including about 7,300 in the Atlanta area.
Georgia Power said Friday that it had made enough progress that it moved up its projections for finishing the bulk of repairs by 24 hours. The company now expects that it will restore service to 95 percent of affected customers by Saturday evening, a day sooner than its earlier projections.
Almost 1 million of the Atlanta utility’s customers lost power during Monday’s storm. Georgia Power said it has beefed up its personnel repairing storm damage to more than 8,000, from 3,400 initially, by calling in crews from other utilities as far away as Canada.
About 46,000 of Georgia Power's customers still didn't have power Friday, according to the utility's state-wide outage map. The largest concentrations were in DeKalb County and the Macon, Gainesville and Brunswick areas.
Georgia EMC, a trade group that represents electric utility cooperatives in the state, also known as EMCs, said it still had about 35,000 customers who didn't have electricity Friday afternoon. About 2,600 of those were in metro Atlanta, according to Georgia EMC.
About 550,000 of the EMCs’ customers lost power during the storm.
The utilities said the storm was unusually destructive because it hit all areas of the state. Irma caused extensive damage across the state by knocking down trees that destroyed or damaged homes and knocked down power lines. It also brought flooding, especially in coastal areas.
As a result, many residential customers had to wait two or three days, or more, before their power was restored.
Georgia Power said it gave highest priority to power outages affecting hospitals, nursing homes and schools, then tackled repairs that would restore power quickly to the largest number of customers.
MYAJC.COM: REAL JOURNALISM. REAL LOCAL IMPACT.
AJC Business reporter Russell Grantham keeps you updated on the latest news about major companies, CEOs and public utilities in metro Atlanta and beyond. You'll find more on myAJC.com, including these stories:
Never miss a minute of what's happening in local business news. Subscribe to myAJC.com.
About the Author
