A Message from Georgia Transmission:
Last year, Hurricane Helene reminded all of us how vital a resilient electric grid is for Georgia’s communities. While storms can’t be prevented, preparation and innovation can make all the difference in how quickly power is restored when Mother Nature strikes.
Through our Gridovation® investment, Georgia Transmission is strengthening the state’s electric infrastructure every day—using data and technology to prepare for both future storms and future growth.
Following Helene, we’ve expanded tools that help us plan smarter and recover faster. A new dashboard will consolidate outage data from across the state, allowing our teams to better communicate with our members and staff on locations, extent of damage, crew assignments and expected restoration times. We’ve also enhanced our radio and cellular communication network, adding multi-carrier SIM systems to ensure continuous communication when conditions are at their worst.
Meanwhile, our Microgrid Research Center opening this year will explore how localized systems can keep essential services online during outages, particularly in hard-to-reach areas. Together, these efforts represent a more adaptive, connected grid—one built to recover quickly, no matter what tomorrow brings.
We’re proud to stand alongside local EMCs in supporting Georgia’s communities.
The below excerpt is from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s story series on Hurricane Helene’s impact on electric co-ops across eight states
By NRECA contributing writer Steve Johnson. Read the full series on NRECA’s website.
It has been nearly a year since Hurricane Helene unleashed destruction unlike any in the 90-year history of the electric cooperative network. Initial estimates placed co-op outages at 1.25 million; a review of filings with state and federal agencies put the number at closer to 1.44 million, more than twice as many as Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Helene claimed 250 lives and burdened co-ops from Florida to Tennessee with hundreds of millions of dollars in repair costs.
Little Ocmulgee and Canoochee were among Georgia EMCs that totaled about 435,000 outages. They quickly enlisted contractors and mutual aid crews to clear roads. Meanwhile, Georgia Transmission, the cooperative that builds and maintains most of the state’s EMC transmission infrastructure, tackled what would be $38 million in damage. Nearly 200 of its substations were offline with 152 transmission lines down at peak, affecting some 435,000 EMC members.
“This was catastrophic,” said Craig Heighton, director of external affairs at Georgia Transmission. “We’ve had this kind of damage before—lines out, trees on lines that need to be cleared. But when I say catastrophic, it was a Herculean effort because we’ve never seen in our history this sheer amount of storm damage all at once.”
What helped cut transmission repair time to little more than a week was the state’s jointly operated transmission system among GTC, Georgia Power, MEAG Power and Dalton Utilities. They work on each other’s lines and reduce redundancies, noted Heighton, who added that crews from PowerSouth Energy Cooperative in Andalusia, Alabama, were vital to rebuilding a tattered system.
“Even though we were walloped, we were able to get all transmission restored in a matter of about a week,” said Heighton. “I know that seems like a long time and our goal is to get it up just as quickly and safely as possible. But to have that much damage and to work it in about a week’s time was pretty good, we felt.”