Outages & Weather Updates

My fellow members, We are on day 5 of our Hurricane Helene restoration efforts. We have good news to report. Initially, we had some 13 substations out of 29 that did not have transmission service available. Currently, 3 substations do not have transmission service. Two in Brooks and one in North Lowndes County. Our ability to make progress in restoration requires that the substation have that transmission service. Our total workforce continues to work 16-hour days every day. The number...

Colquitt EMC's Moultrie Office will reopen for business tomorrow, October 1! While all other offices will remain closed, they will still be available to take phone calls. Click the link below to explore all our billing and payment options! Billing & Payment Options

We are continuing our Hurricane Helene Power Restoration Effort. Here are some answers to frequently asked questions: 1.

My fellow members, Colquitt EMC continues to work diligently in restoring power throughout our system. As previously reported our workforce has 770 personnel engaged in restoring power. As time goes on and other personnel become available, we will probably add additional personnel as well. As a reminder, these personnel work 16-hour days and get approximately 6 hours of sleep a night. I am sure by now most people have seen images of the damage and devastation in our area. If you can...

All Colquitt EMC offices will remain closed tomorrow, Monday, September 30, as we focus our resources on power restoration efforts. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.

My fellow members, We continue our efforts to restore service to all our members. From a peak number of over 67,000 outages, we now sit at about 48,000 outages. From a workforce perspective, with Idalia and Debby, we had approximately 450 working personnel. With Helene, we are currently at 770 and may continue to ramp that workforce upward as other assets become available. Each time we increase this number, we are entering new territory with managing personnel and ensuring that they work...

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...

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...

We are wrapping up Day One of our Hurricane Helene Restoration Effort. 95% of our contract personnel arrived today. The rest will arrive tomorrow. Mitchell EMC will also be joining us to provide mutual aid. Crews have started the restoration process. As we have stated in previous updates, this is likely to be a lengthy outage event due to the widespread damage. As always, we appreciate your patience. We will have employees working in shifts around the clock until power is restored to all...

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...

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!

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...