Hart EMC Crews Helping to Restore Power in Habersham County
12 Hart EMC crew members are helping Habersham EMC restore power to thousands of customers. Pictured: David Craft, Adam Bailey, Logan Patton, Payton Hill, Christian Jacques, and Drake Chastain along with Charlie Milford, Wes DeGrave, Bryce Lunsford, Michael Rucker, Hayden Colston, and Chase Lord
12 crew members from Hart EMC are in Habersham County helping to restore power to thousands of customers there.
Hart EMC spokeswoman Angie Brown tells WLHR News the call for help went out late Sunday night after a powerful thunderstorm roared through Northeast Georgia earlier that evening downing trees and power lines throughout the Habersham County service area.
“Hart EMC will always help sister cooperatives after we get other members back on. And Sunday night we got the call to come help Habersham EMC,” she said. “So we sent 12 linemen who left early Monday morning. We hope they’ll be back in a day or two. We ask that all your listeners say a quick prayer that our guys stay safe and come home safely.”
As of Monday evening, Habersham EMC reported just over 2,000 customers still without power in the six-county area they serve.
Habersham EMC reported on their Facebook page that they had 44 broken poles as a result of the storm and said crews would be working through the night to restore power to customers.
Brown said the hardest work will be trying to get to the power lines after trees and debris had knocked them down.
Most of the outages were reported in the White County area.
In Franklin County, many homes and businesses in the Royston/Franklin Springs area also experienced power outages Sunday evening.
Most of those were Georgia Power customers but Hart EMC also had some customer outages in that area.
Brown said they were able to get their customers in the Royston area back on last night.
Hart EMC crews were joined by Laurens EMC, Palmetto EMC, Aiken EMC, Georgia Right of Way, Davey Tree, and UPA in assisting Habersham EMC in restoring power to customers. .