High Winds Down Trees Knock Out Power In White County

10-4-15

(Cleveland)- Power crews and public safety officials spent all day Sunday and into the night dealing with numerous  downed trees, broken poles and broken power lines in White and surrounding counties.   

Nicole Dover, Director, Marketing & Communications  Habersham Electric Membership Corporation said, the ground is saturated from the heavy rain and trees continue to fall.  In some cases, power is restored and then another tree falls and knocks out electricity again. At one time over 6500 Habersham Electric Customers in White County were without power, and over 3,100 customers in Habersham. There were almost a thousand HEMC customers affected in Hall and Rabun Counties  with a few hundred in Lumpkin and Stephens  Counties.

 Dover said, they have called in additional crews from Snapping Shoals EMC and Walton EMC  to assist with restoration efforts which will last well into the night.   HEMC members are encouraged to report outages online at habershamemc.com or by calling 706-754-2114, 706-865-4362 or 800-640-6812.  Please do not attempt to report outages via social media as it is not monitored 24/7.

White County Public Safety Director David Murphy said, the first threat of flooding for the county did not materialize, with just a few places where the creeks were out of their banks and a few places where roads were washed. The biggest challenge they had along with power crews were downed trees in roadways and on power lines.  Wind gust up to 49 miles per hour were recorded Sunday morning.

(Update from Habersham Electric)  

As of 5 p.m. Sunday afternoon, Oct. 4, approximately 13,650 HEMC members were without power. Outages of varying sizes are scattered throughout HEMC’s six county service area.

Many of the outages require hours of work due to the replacement of broken poles and lines, furthermore compounded by the heavy equipment needed to do these repairs becoming stuck in the saturated ground. In addition, the wind continues to blow and knock down more trees.

Some of the larger outages are due to transmission line problems affecting multiple substations. Transmission line repairs are beyond HEMC’s control, as transmission lines belong to third party entities that transport electricity from generation facilities.

All HEMC members should have power restored by sometime Tuesday.

***Extremely Important**** Residents are urged to avoid downed lines and to treat all as if electrified. DO NOT attempt to remove trees from the lines.

(Update from White County Schools)—-

White County School Superintendent Dr. Jeff Wilson advises they will make a decision Monday morning about school operation. Wilson said, ” we have two schools without power as of 5:30 pm Sunday and many roads blocked.  Our hope is that overnight we will see power coming back on across the county and the roads cleared.  He said, “if not, we will make a decision very early Monday Morning.” UPDATE: White and Habersham County Schools are closed for Monday

Tree fallen on mobile home on Highway 129 South of Cleveland

Tree suspended on power line Highway 129 North at Alternate Highway 75

Huge tree falls across SUV off Tesnatee Gap Valley Road the vehicle was parked in the driveway of a home, no one was injured.

Large tree falls across SUV parked in front of home on Tesnatee Gap Valley Road. No one was in the vehicle

Huge tree down in front of Freudenberg-NOK Cleveland

Down tree just misses the Westmoreland home on Highway 75 North of Cleveland

Tree across power line on Town Creek Road, Cleveland

Down tree across Cantrell Road and on power line in Cleveland

trees down in pasture on Allison Drive, Cleveland