PALMETTO, Ga. – Coweta-Fayette Electric Membership Corporation’s (EMC) is assessing the damage as Hurricane Irma continues to topple trees and leave power lines a tangled mess.

“As of 4:00 PM we have approximately 30,000 services without power,” said Chellie Phillips, Vice President of Communications and Public Relations. “We anticipate even more outages as the storm continues to move across our service territory. Conditions have deteriorated where it is no longer safe for our crews to be out working. Once the conditions improve, our crews will be back out tackling the restoration effort. In large outages, our main goal is to get power flowing again to as many customers as safely as possible in the shortest time.”

The first repairs are made to substations and the backbone of the grid. Then our attention is turned to services providing necessary community services, such as hospitals. After that, repairs are prioritized by the largest number of accounts restored in the shortest time.

Coweta-Fayette EMC stocked up before the storm arrived, insuring we have the necessary poles, wire, transformers and other supplies needed in the restoration process. Our vendors are on standby should we need additional materials.

The statewide EMC disaster plan has laid the groundwork for quickly getting help from sister EMCs and our contractor network if it’s needed. We’ve already arranged for these crews to begin arriving Tuesday and we are actively seeking additional assistance.

C-F EMC has a fully staffed call center, and you have the ability to report outages through our website and app. By reporting your outages through these resources, we’re able to track and monitor the areas hardest hit and make restoration plans.

Remember to check the Coweta-Fayette EMC website (www.utility.org) and follow our Facebook or Twitter feed for updated information.

Coweta-Fayette EMC is a member-owned energy company, serving over 82,000 accounts, headquartered in Palmetto, Ga.