Total number of residences and businesses in Georgia without power late Thursday: about 262,000
Thousands of crews, many of them working around the clock, are responding to outages caused by this week’s storms. Thursday afternoon, their efforts were outpacing the number of new outages.
Total number of residences and businesses without power at peak: 383,000
The outages were first reported Wednesday morning and accelerated through the day. Late Wednesday, utility crews were making progress, but then came more icy rain and snow. Weighed-down trees and utility poles toppled, bringing down more wires.
The number of people without power soared early Thursday.
Total number of residences and businesses affected by the power outage: more than 764,000
Combined, Georgia Power and the more than 40 companies in the Georgia Electric Membership Corp. cover most of the state’s power needs and as of Thursday afternoon, they were putting people back on the grid faster than new outages were being reported. Since Wednesday morning, power has been restored to about a half-million customers.
Areas hit the hardest: south of Atlanta, Augusta
The storm knocked down wires across the northern half of the state. Worst hit were areas in the southern part of Fulton County, Clayton County as well as Peachtree City in Fayette County. Late afternoon Thursday, there were still about 97,000 customers around Augusta without power.
Estimate of the total number of people affected by the outages: 1.6 million
When utilities say “customer,” they mean an account or a meter. But while a customer could be a single person or office building, it also could be a household with several people. So statewide there is an average of more than two people per electric customer. An educated guess puts the total affected at 1.595 million – so far.
Expectations for how long until power is restored to all: At least several days.
To meet the challenges of this week’s storm, utilities deployed thousands of crews – many of them drawn from out of the region. Officials say they have poured those resources into the field according to pre-set priorities – to restore power where the most people are affected, to undo dangerous situations like fallen wires, to make sure first responders and hospitals have power.
The number of people without power began to fall Thursday afternoon.
But the sheer number of problems – and the time it takes to resolve many of them – mean that many people will be without electricity for some time.
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