The good news Sunday from Georgia Power: Virtually all of the 701,000 customers who lost power in last week’s ice and snow storm now have electrical service.
The bad news: Most of those who still don’t have power are in the hard-hit Augusta area.
In an update posted on its website Monday morning., the utility said it is still working to repair outages affecting 293 customers across the state. Only 129 customers remained without power in the Augusta area.
Many of those still without electricity will need to perform repairs on their homes or businesses before utility crews can reconnect them, said Carol Boatwright, a Georgia Power spokeswoman. In those cases, she said, the ice storm damaged the “service entrance” — the point at which electricity moves from the utility’s lines into the customer’s realm.
Georgia Power expected to have reconnected all customers except those who need their own repairs by the end of Sunday, Boatwright said.
Even with the remaining outages, Augusta experienced a great deal of relief over the weekend. As late as Saturday, 41,000 customers were without electricity, down from 80,000 in the previous 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Georgia Electric Membership Corp. reported that as of 11 a.m. Sunday, 20,800 of its customers remained without power. That was down from about 37,500 a day earlier.
Georgia EMC, which represents the state’s 41 member-owned electric cooperatives, said power has been restored to 273,000 customers since the storm.
The remaining EMC outages are along I-20, mostly near Augusta. Crews also were working in Burke, Jenkins, Screven, Bulloch, Effingham, Emanuel and Richmond counties, all of which experienced severe damage, said Terri Statham, a Georgia EMC spokeswoman.
Georgia EMC has sent in 330 crews from areas of Georgia that were unaffected by the outages and from seven other states. An additional 350 workers converged this weekend on areas with the remaining outages, Statham said.
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