Fewer trees branches may help keep the lights on in Peachtree Corners.
Representatives from Georgia Power presented a new plan to Peachtree Corners City Council at its Feb. 9 work session meeting for increasing power reliability in select areas. Georgia Power suggested using a new mapping software to pinpoint troublesome trees, which caused most of the recent issues.
If approved by the city, Georgia Power would prune trees and remove dead ones over the next few months, followed by upkeep each year.
The company plans to target Frank Neely Road, Gunnin Road and Spalding Drive, with other areas to be determined. Georgia Power will focus its energy on improving power reliability in areas which affect the greatest number of people at once, the company said.
Rather than clearing trees that simply appear troublesome to the eye, the company would use the software to analyze the potential hazards in a given area. This prevents contractors from unnecessarily ruining the aesthetic of trees along roadways, said Lance Boyer, utility arborist supervisor for Georgia Power.
Before moving forward with the plan, Peachtree Corners will further discuss it after Georgia Power analyzes data and shares more details.
Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols planned to virtually attend the work session to discuss a larger tree trimming and removal program for all city streets that the council greenlighted, but he couldn’t make it due to cell signal issues while on the road.
Echols and a group of residents will canvass the Spalding Corners neighborhood on Saturday to personally alert residents who have tree overgrowth in power lines about the program, Echols said. They will explain the correlation between thick vegetation around lines and outages.
