Coastal Electric is making last minute preparations for the expected winds of Hurricane Matthew this weekend. We expect this storm will produce considerably more damage to our electric distribution than Tropical Storm Hermine nearly a month ago.
We encourage Members to prepare for power outage durations of 12 to 36 hours. We have additional support crews from other Georgia electric cooperatives who will arrive Friday and will be staged to begin work as soon as the eye of the hurricane has passed or earlier if it is safe. We have five additional relief crews who can arrive Sunday if needed.
We are frequently asked if there is a medical priority list. As much as we would like to offer medical priorities it is simply not possible to restore power to an isolated home in an area when the main feeder lines to that area are still down.
If you have a medical condition that requires you to have uninterrupted electricity we suggest you follow the recommendations of your county emergency management director and make plans now to move to a safe location until power can be restored to your home.
Our priority is always to restore power to the greatest number of people in the shortest period of time. We work first to restore the high voltage transmission lines, then substations, followed by our main feeder lines then single phase taps and lastly, individual services.
We will continue to monitor the path and forecast of Hurricane Matthew and adjust our storm response procedures accordingly.
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