Strategy & Support: Georgia Power Responds to a Historic Storm

Hurricane Helene hit the state of Georgia as a Category 1 storm in the early morning hours of Friday, September 27, bringing torrential rains and winds up to 100 mph in parts of the state. The resulting devastation is historic, with thousands of broken poles and miles of downed wire interrupting power for nearly 100 percent of customers in the most affected areas. As the first full day of restoration progressed, Georgia Power determined that Helene’s destruction of infrastructure statewide makes it the most destructive hurricane to ever hit the company’s system. As restoration efforts continue, more than 15,000 personnel are working around the clock to safely restore power as quickly as possible to customers across the state.  

We spoke with Cleve, Georgia Power’s Vice President of Strategy and Support, on the historic nature of this restoration effort, what’s involved in getting power back on after a storm of this magnitude, and how he stays motivated in the face of an effort this size.  

The following is an excerpt from Cleve’s interview. 

How does Georgia Power’s response to Hurricane Helene compare to that of other major hurricanes we've experienced? 

 We’re still very early in the Hurricane Helene response, but it's already shaping up to be our largest response ever. If you compare Hurricane Helene to other storms like Irma, Matthew, Michael with the amount of transmission damage, the number of broken poles, the amount of staging areas, it’s a historic response for Georgia Power.  

How has Smart Grid technology assisted our response to this storm? 

For Hurricane Helene in some of the areas that weren’t hit as hard, we saw many instances of trouble isolated and power rerouted and restored automatically. So what used to would have been a sustained outage for many customers now often is just a short 15 to 30 second interruption. 

How do we determine where to send crews in a storm this size?  

With a storm the size of Helene, we typically pull resources together and allocate them based on the amount of damage, across the state. So crews typically take care of their home areas first, then collapse into the hardest hit areas. With our response to Hurricane Helene, as power was restored in the less-affected areas, we started shifting teams to Valdosta, Savannah, and Augusta.  

Can you talk a little bit about how we coordinate response with other industry partners during events like this?  

We're part of the Southeastern Electric Exchange mutual assistance Group, and through that channel, we've received line personnel, vegetation management personnel, and DAT personnel from numerous companies across the country to come help us restore power. And just like our response to Houston after Hurricane Beryl when we sent crews west, we work very closely with other utilities to make sure we can help each other in times like this. 

What kind of damage are we seeing in the hardest hit areas in this storm? And what sorts of major repairs have to happen before power can be restored to customers?  

This is the most significant impact we've ever seen from a storm to our transmission system. We have things like transmission structures and conductors down, and those structures have to be replaced, wire picked back up, and the transmission system energized. From a Distribution standpoint, the tree damage we've seen with Helene is just incredible – just extremely widespread, devastating, catastrophic damage. It's not hyperbole to say that it’s the some of the most significant tree damage we've ever seen. That creates a problem just getting to the outages. We had team members using chainsaws to cut their way from their home in order to get to work over the weekend. We're bringing in skid steers just to move trees and debris out of the road for our bucket trucks to be able to drive down the street.  

How do you personally keep a positive attitude during a time like this? And how do you suggest that others do the same?  

This is, I think, the core of what we do at Georgia Power: provide hope back to communities that are impacted in major storms like this. 

There's really no more gratifying work that we do than helping restore normalcy to people’s lives after a major storm. I know our teams in the field take such pride in the product we provide and how we respond in times like this. When you see some of the comments from officials and comments on social media thanking our teams for what they do in the field – that makes it easy to get excited about what we're out here to do. It’s long days and time away from family, and I’m just so thankful for our teams. I know my family's proud of me, and I know that our teammates' families are proud of them, too. And I think that gives us a lot of energy to go out and do this very important work.