More than 600,000 people were still without power Sunday morning in Georgia, a couple days after Hurricane Helene swept through the state, causing more than a dozen deaths and extensive damage, according to state officials.
About 685,000 customers were without power at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, according to poweroutage.us, a service that tracks outages nationwide. That number was down from 700,000-plus on Saturday. Most of those affected are Georgia Power customers. Georgia Power said as of Saturday evening, it had restored power for more than 520,000 people who lost electricity.
“Crews continue to navigate treacherous conditions including extensive tree damage, persisting flooding conditions and many road closures,” Georgia Power said in a news release. “As the first full day of restoration progressed today, the company determined that Hurricane Helene was the most destructive hurricane in its history damaging infrastructure across the state. Additionally, there is the potential for additional damage and power outages that could occur due to the saturated ground and weakened trees.”
Gov. Brian Kemp has surveyed damage in affected areas.
“We knew it was going to be bad,” Kemp said in a television interview with WJBF Saturday. “I mean, we knew it was a very wide storm. That’s why we did a statewide state of emergency, you know, we didn’t do it just for counties south of Macon or on a line from Valdosta to Augusta. We literally knew we were going to have a statewide event, that was what we were messaging prior to the storm getting here.”
New Jersey and Mississippi sent generators to Georgia through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, Georgia’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency announced. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also provided tarps and more to help with relief efforts.
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with the Ledger-Enquirer.
