After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (2024)

By Steve Byerly

Published: Sep. 25, 2024 at 4:29 PM EDT|Updated: 3 hours ago

HURRICANE HELENE: Latest updates on the recovery — 24/7

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - With power back on for the vast majority of Georgia Power customers in Augusta, the biggest outages are among customers served by Jefferson Energy.

And there are concerns that more trouble could be on the way as Hurricane Milton moves northward after striking Florida.

Jefferson, a nonprofit electric cooperative, has had more of a struggle than Georgia Power has in restoring service after Hurricane Helene. Still, it says its crews have energized 74% of its service locations.

Jeferson says it has restored power to 27,141 out of 36,878 customers who lost their power.

The co-op has energized 2,508 of 3,886 miles of distribution lines.

Power is mostly back on, but Augusta mayor stands by curfew

Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson said Monday an overnight curfew will remain in place, although it may be re-evaluated in the middle of the week.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (1)

Georgia Power says service has been restored to at least 99% of its impacted customers in the state, and 98% in Augusta.

On Wednesday, 2,270 customers still lacked power in Augusta.

For those who do have power, they’re hoping it stays on.

Hurricane Milton – which is even stronger than Helene – won’t pass through the CSRA. But it will come close enough to bring us gusts up to around 30 mph.

That wouldn’t normally be newsworthy, but some of the trees Helene didn’t take down completely are leaning or split.

It wouldn’t take a strong wind to bring some of those trees crashing into power lines that have just been repaired.

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  • Food and water: Distribution sites in the CSRA
  • Acts of kindness: Help flows in after Hurricane Helene
  • Shelters: Where to go if Helene impacted you in the CSRA
  • List: School, closures and reopening plans after Helene

Georgia Power says it’s already preparing its crews to respond to Milton, which could affect Georgia as early as Thursday.

The company says its response to Helene – the most destructive hurricane in its history – involved more than 20,000 personnel, including Georgia Power’s full workforce as well as crews from other companies who traveled across the country to help.

The company has safely restored power to more than 1.5 million customers, or 99% of all impacted customers.

The company said it had extended and expanded customer assistance programs with disconnections suspended, late fees waived and overall collection activities paused through at least Dec. 15.

MORE FROM NEWS 12:

  • How linemen are getting resources during storm recovery
  • Tent cities: where linemen eat, sleep during storm cleanup

Here are some figures that show the extent of damage:

  • More than 8,300 power poles that must be repaired or replaced.
  • More than 21,000 spans of wire damaged equivalent to approximately 1,000 miles.
  • More than 2,000 transformers were damaged.
  • More than 3,200 trees on power lines that must be removed or addressed to restore power
‘Humbling’: CSRA residents share their stories of Helene

It’s been more than a week since Hurricane Helene slammed into the two-state area, and neighbors say destruction like this will be felt for years to come.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (2)

The repairs are going a lot slower for Georgia’s electric cooperatives – nonprofit utilities like Jefferson Energy, which serves parts of Augusta and a swath of adjacent counties.

By last count, power remained out for about 122,700 co-op customers.

Georgia co-ops’ outages peaked at 435,000.

The co-ops estimate that within two weeks, 85% of all outages will be restored to locations that can take power.

Georgia Electric Membership Corp. said the pace of restoration will probably be slow from here on because of some unique challenges:

  • Several co-ops are rebuilding as much as 100% of their distribution system, while others are repairing and replacing significant portions of their network.
  • The currently affected co-ops serve enormous land areas and have far fewer members per mile of line (an average of five) compared with investor-owned utilities (average of 34) and publicly owned utilities, or municipal, (with an average of 48, nearly five times that of an electric co-op).
  • Co-ops report historically high numbers of downed trees and power poles, surpassing previous records. Linemen are replacing thousands of broken poles, which requires as much as four hours per pole in ideal working conditions
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Electric cars can be used to power home devices during emergencies

Aside from Teslas, most electric vehicles have some version of vehicle-to-load or bi-directional charging. Some vehicles also have a hidden plug under the seat.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (3)

View the outage map for Georgia electric cooperatives

For those who aren't served by Georgia Power, here's a look at outages in the Peach State.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (4)

View the Georgia Power outage map

Hurricane Helene continues impacting Georgia and has caused widespread outages. Crews are responding to outages and restoring power where it’s safe to do so as quickly as possible.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (5)

In South Carolina

Dominion Energy estimates power will be restored to approximately 95% of customers across each county in its South Carolina service territory by 11 p.m. Wednesday.

This includes Aiken, Edgefield and McCormick counties, which were among the areas most ravaged by Hurricane Helene.

Crews continue to work around the clock to get the lights back on for the approximately 5,000 customers who were without power as of 10 a.m. Monday.

Work is expected to continue through midweek across the densely wooded terrain where Helene’s historic reach inland snapped thousands of trees, which brought down miles of poles and lines.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (6)

The vastness of the damage has severely limited access for utility crews who have deployed tracked equipment, all-terrain vehicles, pontoon boats and helicopters to aid in the response.

More than 4,000 Dominion Energy employees and additional out-of-state crews have worked nonstop in South Carolina since Helene destructively blew through. Since the start of the unprecedented recovery work, they have restored power to more than 440,000 customers.

Meanwhile, South Carolina’s electric cooperatives like Aiken Electric say they’ve made progress in rebuilding electric infrastructure and restoring power, but there’s a lot of work ahead.

Crews have so far restored power to 406,000 cooperative meters, about 95.5% of those who lost power and almost 98% of the entire statewide co-op system.

Less than 19,000 cooperative members remain without electricity, down from a high of 425,000 on the morning of Sept. 27.

FEMA says aid is flowing freely into CSRA after Helene

FEMA has already granted more than $137 million in disaster assistance to victims of Hurricane Helene. FEMA had approved over $30 million for more than 38,000 households as of Sunday.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (7)

Many of those without power may be in the CSRA, where some co-op customers were told it could take weeks for the electricity to come back.

More than 3,000 line workers – the majority of them from out of state – continue to rebuild and repair the cooperative system, many working 16-hour shifts and sleeping at night in “tent cities” that co-ops have erected in recent days.

In addition to those out-of-state workers, 11 S.C. co-ops have sent crews to help restore power for their fellow co-ops on the state’s western half.

Copyright 2024 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.

After mostly fixing Helene’s outages, local utilities bracing for Milton (2024)
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