A Message from our President/CEO
Saturday, September 28, 4:00 PM
My fellow members,
Colquitt EMC continues to work diligently at restoring power throughout our system. Contract crews have arrived and began working alongside our crews. Unfortunately, many of our substations are still offline. We have been in contact with GTC and Georgia Power and are eagerly waiting for those substations to be back up and running.
I would like to take a moment to discuss the nature of the work that our personnel are up against. Under normal circumstances, we expect our outside personnel to work an average of 50 hours a week in either line construction/maintenance or right-of-way maintenance. The jobs that these workers perform are hazardous and require concentration and much thought about safety to complete their work safely. Now imagine, instead of 50 hours a week, we are asking these same workers to perform their duties for 115 hours a week. Imagine the difficult scenarios these workers must perform under. Imagine performing the same work in adverse weather and site conditions. These workers are navigating debris, tangled lines, deep water, downed trees, and so much more. Many places are inaccessible to bucket trucks, so they have to climb each pole to perform work. As one of our line crew foremen said earlier today, “We worked for two hours and only went 600 feet.”
We ask so much of these individuals under normal circumstances. During storm restoration efforts, we ask for so much more. It truly takes a special individual to be able to do this job under all these adverse conditions. As an employee of Colquitt EMC and as a member I am truly grateful for the dedication of all our employees and the effort that they give to our EMC with regards to customer service.
We thank you again for your patience and prayers. We will not stop working until power is restored to all. We will provide another update tomorrow morning.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO
A Message from our President/CEO
Saturday, September 28, 9:30 AM
My fellow members,
As you know, Hurricane Helene has been a significant hurricane and has devastated our system. It has exceeded the damage that we have seen from prior storms such as Idalia and Debby. The windspeed that was attributed to Helene was more than 140 mph at landfall. I believe Idalia was around 120 mph at landfall. With this storm, there are roughly 1,000 broken power poles that need to be changed out in comparison to roughly 500 broken power poles with Hurricane Idalia.
Due to Helene, cell phone and internet services have been affected and practically unusable yesterday and this morning. We hope this will improve throughout the day today. Also, transmission service to our substations has been greatly disrupted. Colquitt EMC has 29 substations. A substation is where we pick up electric service and distribute it to our 73,000 meters. During Idalia, we had approximately 5 substations that lost service. As of last night, 13 of 29 substations were without transmission service. The majority of these are in Lowndes and Berrien counties. The greatest cause of these outages is broken transmission poles and structures. We are waiting for Georgia Transmission Corporation and Georgia Power to restore service to these stations.
So how about some positive news? At its peak yesterday morning, Colquitt EMC had approximately 67,000 meters without service. Since yesterday, we have brought that number down to approximately 56,000 meters without power. We are optimistic that once service is restored to the substations, we could see significant improvement. In comparison to Hurricane Idalia, Colquitt EMC began that restoration effort with 200 service personnel. Over the first three days of that outage, we ramped up manpower total to 450 workers to restore service. With Hurricane Debby, we retained a similar 450-line personnel number for the entire 4.5-day outage. With Helene, we recognized the potential severity early on and were able to obtain extra resources early on. By mid-morning today, we will have approximately 770 construction and right-of-way workers at Colquitt EMC.
My fellow members, there is nothing more important to us than restoring your electrical service. We are working diligently to get it restored. Once again, we ask for your patience. This will not end quickly. We ask for your prayers. There are always hazards that show up and increase when restoring power after a major storm. Thank you for all that you have done for us. We will have another update this afternoon.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO
A Message from our President/CEO
Friday, September 27, 2024 – 10:30 AM
My fellow members,
Hurricane Helene has come through our system and is moving toward the mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley States. Last night and early morning, Helene made a north-northeast turn as opposed to the projected northerly path. This change resulted in more of a direct hit to Lowndes and Berrien Counties as opposed to affecting more of our westerly area such as Quitman and Moultrie. The strength of Helene was much greater than Idalia or Debby.
We have significant damage in all areas of our service territory. According to our outage system, approximately 66,000 meters of our 73,000 meters are without power. We have lost some transmission voltage in several of our counties. This is the first requirement for us to be able to restore service to our members.
We are assembling our line working personnel. A large percentage of employees are struggling just to find a clear path to come to work. Having clear roads is a problem in the early stages of this event. However, we are beginning to assess the damage and make a plan of action.
This is not a one-day or two-day outage event. Idalia was some 7-8 days. I believe this will easily exceed Idalia’s power outage duration. Rest assured we are calling upon all resources that are available to us that can assist us in restoring power. We are leaving no stone unturned in making the effort to restore service to all our members. We will give it maximum effort and we ask for your patience and prayers. We will keep you updated throughout the process.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO
A Message from our President/CEO
Thursday, September 26, 2024 – 4:30 PM
My fellow members,
The latest indications on Hurricane Helene have become more consistent. The path traveling through our service territory hasn’t changed very much today. We are still expecting a landfall for Helene sometime before midnight. As of 4:00 PM, the sustained winds are predicted to be in the 130 MPH range. Currently, there are no indications that it will intensify past that.
We are very concerned with this hurricane achieving this high wind speed right before landfall. We urge our members to once again take stock of their homes and surroundings and prepare themselves for extended power outages due to this weather.
We continue in preparation at Colquitt EMC. We are fortunate to have secured the services of a significant amount of contract construction and right-of-way labor. Those crews are expected to arrive tomorrow. This hurricane event is different from those in the recent past. As of now, we do not have any mutual aid available. Mutual aid is construction and right-of-way crews from other EMCs. We do not have mutual aid lined up because Helene is projected to impact the entire state of Georgia with high winds and heavy rainfall. All EMCs across the state of Georgia anticipate needing to use their personnel. Once the storm has passed, we will reevaluate to see if we can call on those resources.
Just as a reminder, we intend to begin restoration efforts tomorrow as soon as the wind speed falls below 35 MPH so we can work safely and effectively. We ask for your continued prayers for the safety of our members and employees. We also ask for your patience as we work to restore service to all.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO
Due to safety concerns, Colquitt EMC will be unable to respond to outages until the winds are below 35 MPH. The winds are expected to be above 35 MPH between 8:00 PM tonight and daylight tomorrow morning. Thank you for your patience and understanding!
A Message from our President/CEO
Thursday, September 26, 2024 – 9:00 AM
My fellow members,
Colquitt EMC is preparing for the imminent landfall of Hurricane Helene. We are carefully watching the strength of the hurricane and its projected path. As of this update, Helene will make landfall as a Category Three Hurricane somewhere in the Big Bend of Florida. As time has progressed the projected path has come closer and closer to the paths taken by Idalia and Debby this previous year. Both of those storms were devastating for Colquitt EMC. They each produced outages for the vast majority of our members. Given the relative strength of Hurricane Helene, we are concerned that there will be an even greater amount of damage from this event than the prior storms. I would like to remind our members of these two facts when it comes to major power restoration:
When it comes to performing work on our distribution system, we are prohibited from working from poles and buckets when the wind speed exceeds 35 mph. The safety of our line workers is paramount and that is an established guideline to ensure safety for our crews. When the storm hits our service territory, we will be unable to perform much work because of that restriction. Rest assured that we are standing on “GO” when that wind speed drops below 35 mph.
We believe we are experienced and proficient in clearing our power lines and restoring service to our damaged system. However, as we experienced with Hurricane Idalia and Debby, many roads became impassable, and that requires county and state road crews to perform clean-up before we can enter and begin our restoration process.
We continue to ask for prayers for all employees and members, for their safety and security. We feel that we have made all the preparations that we can to be ready to restore service. Your patience is greatly appreciated. God bless you and please be safe.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO
A Message from our President/CEO
Wednesday, September 25, 2024 – 2:00 PM
My fellow members,
A couple of changes occurred with Helene. It appears with the speed at which Helene is moving, it will make landfall around 8:00 PM on Thursday, September 26. The second change is that it appears the track is slightly more to the west.
We are continuing to brace for the impact of a Category 3 Hurricane. We have made all possible preparations. This includes scheduling additional personnel, ensuring we have sufficient material to rebuild with, and making sure all equipment is operating correctly. We are doing all that we can to prepare to restore service as soon as practical.
I would like to reiterate I am concerned with the impact that we will see with Helene. This is a large and powerful hurricane. Colquitt EMC will be greatly affected if it continues its present course. While there is time, I urge all members to prepare for severe weather and power outages and to expect widespread outages. At the peak of Hurricane Idalia, Colquitt EMC experienced over 58,000 meters without power. With Hurricane Debby, 42,000 meters were without power at its peak. We are anticipating much higher outages during the peak of Hurricane Helene because this is such a large and powerful hurricane.
We continue to ask for your patience. Please know we will be giving our maximum effort until all power has been restored to all members.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO
A Message from our President/CEO
Wednesday, September 25, 2024 – 9:45 AM
My fellow members,
All indications of Hurricane Helene continue to bear down on the Big Bend area of Florida. Recent changes indicate that it may be even more powerful than what was predicted 24 hours ago. They are now projecting that Helene will be a Category 3 Hurricane at landfall. As we have tracked Helene, it appeared that it followed a path like Idalia and Debby. More recent projections show it coming in a little more to the west, but still moving through Colquitt EMC’s system.
Hurricane Helene will become the third hurricane to impact our service territory in the last 13 months. The effects of Hurricane Idalia and Debby are in very recent memory. The outage resulting from Hurricane Idalia lasted some 7+ days. That is almost 8 days of work with approximately 500 personnel performing power restoration. Hurricane Debby was about a 4-5 day event to restore power to all our members. Currently, Helene is on track to be even more powerful of a storm than Idalia and Debby were.
Without being pessimistic, I want to inform our members that hurricane events cause outages, and these outage times can be lengthy regardless of the amount of manpower that we employ. I can assure you, our members, that we have already called for additional manpower to assist us in restoring service that is equivalent to both Idalia and Debby. We have already contracted with the company that provides lodging services for these contract workers. Colquitt EMC can plan, prepare, and procure for these circumstances, but the reality is, that there will be areas within our service territory where there will be lengthy outages. We will be working extended hours as we always do. We will be making every effort to restore service. We will not slow in those efforts until all service is restored. I ask for each member to survey their circumstances uand se their best judgment. Recognize that outages are a guarantee with storms like these and the length of them could be challenging.
I want to urge all members to make plans to gather items that they need for their homes/businesses in anticipation of an extended outage. Here are some tips on preparing for power outages and severe weather:
To report a power outage:
- Save the Outage Reporting #: 1-855-293-1804
- Know your CEMC Account Number
- Download the FREE Colquitt EMC Mobile App in the Apple App Store or Google Play
- Check the Outage Map
- Log into your Colquitt EMC Account Portal
Basic Disaster Supplies – For a complete list of items and additional information, please visit Ready.Gov
- Non-perishable food & can opener – at least a 3-day supply of non-perishable food
- Bottled water – at least 3 gallons per person, for drinking & hygiene
- First Aid Kit
- Prescription Medication
- Hygiene items
- Battery-operated radio or hand crank NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries
- Spare batteries
- Flashlights
- Extra clothing
- Extra cash
- Emergency charger for mobile devices
As a reminder, our offices will be closed for business on Friday so that all Colquitt EMC employees can assist in the outage restoration effort. To all our members, we humbly ask for your continued prayers. We are also praying for the health and safety of our personnel and our members. God bless you and we will provide another update this afternoon.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO
Important reminder for our members who are dependent on medical devices, such as oxygen!
As Hurricane Helene approaches our service territory, we are encouraging all members to prepare now for severe weather and power outages. We are urging those who are dependent on medical devices that require electricity to make plans to ensure your safety.
In the event of a power outage, Colquitt EMC wants to restore power to members as quickly and safely as possible. Power outages are worked from the substation out, meaning we cannot restore power to individual homes without making repairs to the circuits and tap lines.
Colquitt EMC encourages all members to make preparations now. Ensure you have battery backup or access to a safe location with a reliable power source. If you experience an emergency, please call 911.
Stay safe, Colquitt EMC!
A Message from our President/CEO
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
My fellow members,
I am sure you are all aware of the storm conditions that appear to be heading our way. The prediction is that Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall somewhere in the Big Bend area of Florida around 11 PM Thursday. Forecasts have been evolving over the last several days and it seems with each update, the circumstances become more and more serious for our area. The original projected path was to the west of our service territory, but with each subsequent projection, it has moved further east. Now, it appears the path of Helene will follow the paths of both Debby and Idalia. The last update that I viewed indicated Helene would make landfall as potentially a category 3 hurricane with winds of 115 mph. Helene makes the third major storm event we have experienced in roughly a year.
Given that experience, we feel we have made improvements in our preparations with each major storm. We have already called upon approximately 400 extra workers to assist us with restoring service. We have also contacted individuals who supply support for that many contract workers, which includes, food, lodging, and laundry services. When Colquitt EMC is in storm mode, it is all hands on deck for all CEMC Employees. With that being said, we have decided to close all offices for business on Friday, September 27, so that all office employees can assist in the outage restoration effort.
We are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. I am urging you now do the same for your businesses and households. Here are some tips on preparing for power outages and severe weather:
To report a power outage:
- Save the Outage Reporting #: 1-855-293-1804
- Know your CEMC Account Number
- Download the FREE Colquitt EMC Mobile App in the Apple App Store or Google Play
- Check the Outage Map
- Log into your Colquitt EMC Account Portal
Basic Disaster Supplies:
- Non-perishable food & can opener – at least a 3-day supply of non-perishable food
- Bottled water – at least 3 gallons per person, for drinking & hygiene
- First Aid Kit
- Prescription Medication
- Hygiene items
- Battery-operated radio or hand crank NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries
- Spare batteries
- Flashlights
- Extra clothing
- Extra cash
- Emergency charger for mobile devices
Colquitt EMC will continue to watch this storm closely. We encourage members who rely on electric medical devices to organize a plan for their needs during an extended power outage. For a complete list of items and additional information, go to www.ready.gov/kit. Take time now to prepare! We will continue to update you throughout the week.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO