Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004:

Power restoration complete for GreyStone members

Tropical Depression Frances moved through Georgia Sept. 7, leaving downed power lines in its path. But GreyStone employees were ready to meet the challenge.

“We were ready. We got our contract crews back from Florida last week and kept them here,” explained Bill Sharpton, GreyStone’s Vice President of Operations and Engineering. “On Friday we reviewed our disaster plan with all employees and stocked up on equipment like fuel and chain saws that we knew we’d need. We went into disaster planning mode at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning. Overall, I think we’re in good shape.”

The storm left approximately 10,000 GreyStone members in the dark Tuesday morning. Falling trees and tree limbs caused the majority of the damage, although three utility poles were also broken during the storm. GreyStone’s crews were called in early Tuesday morning to begin repairs, and by Wednesday evening almost all GreyStone members were back online.

The damage to GreyStone’s lines was not as extensive as it might have been, Sharpton noted. Due to an aggressive year-round right of way program, GreyStone crews have been riding the lines and cutting down trees and over-hanging limbs that pose potential threats to power lines during storms.

GreyStone’s linemen have their work cut out for them this week. After restoring power to local members, they will be sent across the state to help other harder-hit cooperatives.

“Once we have taken care of our members, Gary Miller has said we’ll help our in-state cooperatives,” said Sharpton.

Cooperatives across the state lost power to more than 90,000 members due to Tropical Depression Frances. Jerry Tucker, GreyStone’s supervisor of Line Construction and Maintenance, said the bond between electric providers both locally and nationally is strong, and whenever a storm hits there are always helping hands available to get the lights back on as soon as possible.

“We always send folks if we can. There’s camaraderie, a sense of obligation in this business,” said Tucker, who has worked with six or seven other cooperatives in Georgia after storms have toppled large numbers of trees and power lines. “The more people you can throw at a wide-spread outage, the faster you can get the power on. There’s only so much one crew can do in a day. After a storm you have bad conditions to work under, and you’ve got to be safe.”

For updates on outages and power restorations, visit GreyStone’s Storm Center.