I can’t recall a time in my career, or maybe my life, when I’ve seen anything like Hurricane Helene . It’s impossible to believe unless you’ve seen it up close, and even then, it is difficult to describe – pictures simply don’t do it justice. I visited some of the hardest-hit areas in Georgia in the days following the storm, and what I saw broke my heart.
The destruction was never-ending in places, it just continued for miles and miles. And it’s even more sobering when I stop to think that some of our very own teammates — many working to restore power themselves — were facing devastating damage to their own homes, cutting their way through fallen trees (and some even walking for miles) to get to work, and waiting for power to be restored for their families.
When I saw the devastation in Augusta, Savannah, Valdosta, and Vidalia — and many other areas in between — it quickly became clear to me that this was no ordinary storm. In fact, Helene was the most destructive hurricane in our company’s 140-year history, exceeding the damage caused by hurricanes Michael, Matthew, and Irma combined.
Thankfully, we have a world-class team that ensured Georgia Power was ready to respond. We monitored Helene’s progress from the moment it formed and put plans into place for what we expected to be an extended restoration process. We pre-positioned more than 10,000 personnel around the state who were ready to get to work as soon as the storm passed and it was safe. As damage assessment reports came in from across the state, we ultimately doubled the number of personnel engaged to more than 20,000 with crews coming from across the country…