News Releases

Walton EMC a Beehive of Activity as Storm Approaches

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 28, 2005

Contact Greg Brooks, 770/266-2307, or Katie Woodall, 770/266-2572

MONROE, Ga. –  Walton Electric Membership Corporation, with a long history of dealing with winter weather related outages, is busy preparing to restore power if ice brings down trees and power lines this weekend.

“If there are outages, our objective is to get power flowing again to as many customers as safely as possible in the shortest time,” said Greg Brooks, a spokesman for the company.

Walton EMC is stocked with poles, wire, connectors, transformers and other supplies frequently used in the restoration process.   Vendors have been contacted to be on standby in case additional materials are needed.

Operations supervisors are reviewing crew assignments so they'll quickly be able to dispatch help to affected areas.   The statewide EMC disaster plan has been activated, so the groundwork for getting help from sister EMCs is already laid.

“An advantage for us is that EMC line workers all receive the same training,” said Brooks.   "This means they can go to another EMC and work side-by-side with local line workers or work as independent crews.”

Walton EMC has also contacted contract tree-trimming and electrical line crews to make them aware of a possible call for assistance.   All of Walton EMC's employees pitch in during major outages wherever needed, increasing the efficiency of line workers by freeing them from support tasks.

The company is also coordinating efforts to facilitate customer communication.   In addition to fully staffing the company's call center if needed, automated phone and Internet outage reporting systems are already on line.

This week is the anniversary of “Ice Jam 2000,” the largest outage in Walton EMC's history.

Walton EMC is a customer-owned power company that serves 110,000 accounts over its ten-county service area between Atlanta and Athens.   For background information on power outages and the current status of repairs, log on to waltonemc.com and click on “Storm Center.”

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