By: Joy Purcell/NowHabersham.com
(Undated)- Utility crews are working to restore electricity and internet service to hundreds of customers across Georgia after days of severe weather.
As of Wednesday evening, Georgia Power reported scattered outages around the state, mostly in metro Atlanta. In North Georgia, Windstream is telling customers it could be Friday before its internet and Kinetic TV services are fully restored.
“Windstream has no network-wide outages, but there was damage to equipment and individual cables that caused outages in pockets within our network,” explains Scott Morris, a senior advisor for corporate affairs.
In White County, lightning burned through a Windstream fiber serving a key cell tower in Helen. Morris says crews worked through the night and completed repairs around 3 a.m. Wednesday.
“One of our remote switches in Rabun lost commercial power but continued to function on batteries. In Toccoa, a tree took down the main cable and some fiber drops to customers in the Rosedale Street area, and we have other damaged cables throughout Northeast Georgia.”
Some 475 Northeast Georgia Windstream customers were still without service as of Wednesday evening. Morris says the company is working to restore service as quickly as possible. “We appreciate our customers’ patience as we recover from these storms,” he adds.
In recent years, Windstream phased out its cable television service in North Georgia and switched to its Kinetic internet protocol TV service. One of the downsides of the streaming platform is that when the internet goes down, so does the television. During severe storms, that poses a problem for viewers accustomed to relying on their local TV stations for updated weather forecasts.
“We recommend customers have at least one backup source of emergency news such as a cellphone or weather radio,” Morris tells Now Habersham.
Some Windstream customers still experiencing outages may be able to restore their service by briefly disconnecting the power to their modems. For those unable to restore service, Windstream technical support is available at (800) 347-1991.
Customers left without internet service for extended periods of time may request credit adjustments on their bills. Morris says such requests will be handled on a “case-by-case basis.”
