According to the National Weather Service, the State of Georgia sees an average of 19 days of damaging wind events per year, with the most usually occurring in the month of July.
The State of Georgia has an average of six days with tornado activity, and seven with large hail.
No matter the season in which they occur, these events have the possibility to upend daily life, knocking out power and even damaging or destroying homes and businesses in severe cases.
We can’t stop severe weather, but we can be prepared when it strikes. Georgia Power is constantly monitoring weather forecasts, and in the event of predicted severe weather we have teams mobilized and ready to jump into action to restore service in a timely fashion.
Our control center, meanwhile, is constantly monitoring outages in order to determine which of our service areas are hardest hit so that when it’s safe to do so, we can immediately begin restoring power. But despite our preparedness, there is often a gap between when an outage is reported and when it is safe for our crews to begin restoration. In the meantime we recommended that your family be prepared and protected until our crews can safely restore your power.
How to Prepare for Severe Weather
- Keep a well-stocked emergency supply kit on-hand. View instructions below
- Your inside temperature can be retained for up to 48 hours. In warm weather, turn your air conditioning down. In cold weather, turn your heat up. During and after the storm, keep doors and windows closed.
- Charge your cell phone and other devices that need to be charged. It’s a good idea to have a external battery charged and ready as well.
- Keep freezer doors closed and sealed. Frozen food will keep up to three days in a well-filled freezer.
- Leave a porch or front light on. This helps our crews know when repair work is successful.
For even more safety and preparedness tips, visit https://www.georgiapower.com/storm
Your kit should contain supplies to get you and your family through 3 days without electricity or running water.
Before a storm, make sure that...
- Emergency kit is stocked and current
- House secured if necessary (windows boarded, entryways fortified with sandbags)
- Phones and other devices fully charged
- Georgia Power app is downloaded
- Inside temperature adjusted
- Fill bathtub and spare containers with water
- Evacuation plan complete and shared with family members
- Gas tank filled
- Spare tire inflated
- Pets have collars, tags
- NOAA weather radio is secured, with extra batteries
Dignity Restored
Citizens of Georgia Power breathe life back into a historic cemetery
Watch the Video
Wedged between two historic churches in northwest Georgia, the Euharlee Black Pioneers Cemetery is the final resting place for nearly 300 enslaved members of the Euharlee community.
After being nearly forgotten for most of the 20th century, the cemetery was saved from destruction in the 1990s but needed a great deal of attention and restoration as the site had been almost completely obstructed due to overgrowth and neglect. Its location, scarcely a mile from Plant Bowen, inspired a group from the plant’s Citizens of Georgia Power chapter to get involved in the restoration and repair of the historic burial ground.
In 2020, a large storm event uprooted more than a dozen trees - burying again that which had been uncovered in the years before. But this time, the Citizens of Plant Bowen were ready from the outset to begin the meticulous and painstaking work of restoring a small piece of dignity to this community. Today the cemetery’s restoration is nearly complete, and community members have the opportunity to both learn from and pay respect to the souls it contains.
Trouble on the line
Georgia Power’s line workers keep energy flowing
Alex can do it all, and as a Troubleman in the Metro Atlanta Region, he often does.
He and the other Troublemen are Georgia Power’s version of first responders - solo workers who are dispatched at the first instance of a power outage to assess and quickly repair damage to poles, power lines, and other power delivery infrastructure in order to ensure that any power outage in the Georgia Power system is brief.
Although Alex is based in Tucker, he and the rest of the 50 Troublemen in the area can be dispatched anywhere in the Metro Atlanta region - from Alpharetta to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to ensure that the lights stay on.
The job can mean anything from picking up downed wires or moving trees off the line to replacing a blown transformer - most of which Alex will do by himself (or by teaming up with another Troubleman) in the scaled-down bucket truck they refer to as a squirt boom.
Sometimes, though, the job is bigger than two people. In that case, Andy and his crew are ready to step in.
Andy is a Distribution Crew Leader in Tucker, but like Alex he and his four-man crew of lineworkers can be called out to any trouble location in the Metro Atlanta area. On a normal day, that might mean replacing broken poles or upgrading distribution equipment as a part of our Grid Improvement project. When storms hit, however, the Metro East crew can be called out at any hour of the day or night and will be working to restore power for as much as 16 hours at a time, stopping only to sleep for 8 hours before going back to work and repeating this as long as it takes to make sure power is safely restored to every customer. In particularly bad storms, this can mean that lineworkers spend days or sometimes weeks away from their families.
This work is essential, difficult, and can be dangerous. Every lineman has a story of a close call - a moment that could have been life-changing if not for their years of training and commitment to a safe working environment.
The next time you plug in your toaster, or your lights flicker during a spring thunderstorm, thank a lineman. Their dedication and expertise keep safe, reliable, affordable energy flowing through Georgia’s powerlines, no matter the situation.
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