Georgia electrical utilities shifted preparations into overdrive as the National Weather Service forecast that a potentially historic ice storm will hit much of metro Atlanta and eastern Georgia starting Wednesday.
“It’s all hands on deck,” said Georgia Power spokeswoman Amy Fink.
The Atlanta power company called in out-of-state reserves, bringing thousands of other utilities’ repair crews and stationing them around metro Atlanta and Augusta in anticipation of a treacherous mix of snow, sleet and ice.
Likewise, other smaller utility companies borrowed crews from other power companies to get ready for the ice storm’s aftermath.
“We’re just prepared for the worst,” said Leigh-Anne Burgess, with Snapping Shoals EMC, an electrical power cooperative that serves eight counties on the southeast side of metro Atlanta.
The National Weather Service said the ice could result in widespread power outages and dangerous driving conditions.
It appeared increasingly likely that Georgia was in for a weather “event of historical proportions,” the weather service warned.
Georgia Power said more than 2,500 employees arrived in Atlanta on Tuesday from other electrical utilities in Texas, Florida and Mississippi, joining the company’s local repair crews. The utility said it also is beefing up its fleet of repair crews in the Augusta area, which the National Weather Service predicted would get the brunt of the ice storm in Georgia.
“We watch the weather and put people where they need to be,” said Fink.
Burgess said Snapping Shoals EMC has been getting ready for days.
“We have more than doubled our work force with crews coming in from as far as Arkansas and Florida,” she said in an emailed statement.
Walton EMC, another electrical cooperative east of Atlanta, said it called in workers from other companies in south Georgia and Missouri to beef up its crews.
Even so, the power companies could have to resort to triage if tens or even hundreds of thousands of metro Atlanta customers lose power as a result of snapped power lines, broken poles and downed trees.
In 2000, an ice storm that coated metro Atlanta with more than a quarter-inch of ice left more than 300,000 homes without power for days.
“We are staffed up for whatever comes,” said Fink, who declined to predict what level of damage the predicted ice storm could cause. “All ice is bad. More ice is worse.”
In the event of massive power outages, she said, Georgia Power will concentrate first on repairing lines in areas with the largest concentrations of customers who are out of power, and priority customers such as hospitals.
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