Thousands of people lost power this week after powerful thunderstorms caused massive outages across the state. Currently, around 900 people remain without power.
This has become an all too familiar problem for Georgians. Georgia is in the top 10 states with the most common outages and ranks fifth on duration of outages. The state’s power grid ranks 29th nationally.
With climate change causing more severe weather events, this problem is unlikely to resolve itself anytime soon, and more thunderstorms are predicted in the next week.
With that in mind, Georgia Power has released guidelines instructing customers on what to do in the event of an outage.
Electrical Safety Tips During Storms
1. Never touch any downed wire or low hanging wires.
2. Never pull tree limbs off power, telephone or cable lines or attempt to repair electrical equipment damaged in a storm.
3. Never go near chain link fences – downed power lines or lightning strikes may energize the entire length of the fence.
4. Avoid walking through flooded areas or puddles as they may be energized by downed power lines.
5. Never walk into areas where crews are at work. Please do not approach crews as they perform their important tasks safely.
6. If driving near work crews, obey the “move-over law”, which requires drivers to move over a lane when possible if a utility vehicle with displayed warning lights is parked on the side of the road.
If you are experiencing a power outage, you can report it here, and you can track the status of the response to an outage here as well as on Georgia Power’s Twitter feed.
