ATLANTA — More than 200,000 Georgians remain without power as of Thursday because of Hurricane Irma, which weakened to a tropical storm by the time it reached the Peach State.
There are also still dozens of road closures due to the storm.
Georgia Power said around 124,000 customers are in the dark. Georgia EMC said it had more than 80,000 customers without power. Both of those numbers are down significantly since the storm hit Monday.
[READ: State of Emergency declared in DeKalb, Fulton counties]
Georgia Power said it believes 95 percent of impacted customers will be back online by:
• Athens – Sept. 14, 10 p.m.
• Atlanta – Sept. 15, 10 p.m.
• Augusta – Sept. 16, Noon
• Macon – Sept.16, 10 p.m.
• Savannah/Brunswick – Sept. 16, 10 p.m.
• Valdosta – Sept. 16, 10 p.m.
Crews showed up on Rachel Ramsay’s Midtown Atlanta street to restore her and her neighbors’ power 48 hours after the remnants of Irma ripped through.
“The wires fell, the transformer started sparking, the trees are falling and we called Georgia Power and they said, ‘We’ll get there when we get there,’” she said.
Georgia Power said it has 8,000 personnel fanned out across metro Atlanta and Georgia working around the clock. Irma knocked out power to nearly 1 million customers statewide.
“Do you understand why people are getting frustrated?” Channel 2’s Aaron Diamant asked a Georgia Power customer.
“No. No I can’t,” Jim Stapleton said. “If you see all the destruction and turmoil down in Florida and in Texas, and we got hit pretty hard, but it’s minor compared to what they’re going through.”
Georgia Power wants customers to be patient as they work as quickly as possible to restore power.
“It’s not a matter of just flipping a switch. Of course, you know, there’s a lot of damage, broken poles. It’s rebuilding in some cases,” Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft said. “You see a truck go by and you think they’re leaving your area. You don’t want them to go, but they’re focusing on the repairs that will bring back the most customers in the shortest amount of time. That may mean riding a mile down the road and continuing that work.”
Cox Media Group
