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As Hurricane Ida made landfall last Sunday along the Gulf Coast, Georgia Power sent approximately 500 company personnel and contract teams, including a regional team, to Mississippi to assist their sister company Mississippi Power with its restoration efforts.

Georgia Power’s restoration workforce includes line crews, engineers and logistics personnel.

With each request for assistance, Georgia Power ensures that it has sufficient coverage to respond to any potential local service interruptions before sending off personnel.

The crew first responded to Mississippi on Sunday, where there were almost 60,000 customer outages, according to Georgia Power Area Manager Fred Rudbeck.

Upon complete restoration, the crew is now headed to Louisiana, where it is reported to have over 1,000,000 customer outages and assist the Entergy Corporation in their restoration efforts.

With a regional team focusing on helping those suffering from the wrath of Ida, Rudbeck has now turned his attention to National Preparedness Month and helping encourage the 2.6 million Georgia Power customers to prepare for potential emergencies here.

While Georgia has already weathered several tropical storms, September is the height of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, thus making it National Preparedness Month.

In order to help families prepare for emergencies, Georgia Power has offered a series of tips.
They suggest first building an emergency kit.

“Gather supplies that will last for several days for everyone living in your home,” they said in a press release. “Don’t forget to consider the unique needs each person or pet may have in case you have to evacuate quickly.”

They then remind everyone to have an emergency plan.

“Talk to your friends and family about how you will communicate in an emergency,” they said. “Make sure to update your plan based on the Centers for Disease Control recommendations due to the coronavirus.”

Finally, they ask everyone to understand their risks.

“Learn more about different threats from potential emergencies around your home and business and plan appropriate responses to them,” they said.

The company also reiterated that severe weather can happen at any time and after a storm to never touch any downed or low-hanging wire, including telephone or TV wires that could touch a power line.

“Never pull tree limbs off power lines or enter areas with debris or downed trees as downed power lines may be buried in the wreckage,” they said. “Additionally, do not walk or drive through standing water as it may conceal live wires brought down by the storm.”

For additional tips and to connect with Georgia Power about storm outages visit www.georgiapower.com/storm