News Releases

Walton EMC Urges Customers to Prepare for Winter Outages

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 28, 2005

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

MONROE, Ga. – With the threat of an ice storm hanging over Northeast Georgia, Walton Electric Membership Corporation urges all electric customers to prepare.   Check these five areas to see if you're ready:

Light - Secure flashlights, battery-powered lanterns and extra batteries. It's best to avoid light sources that require a flame or fire.

Water - If you depend on a well, you'll need to fill bathtubs or other large containers for household use, like flushing toilets. Fill clean pitchers or jugs for drinking water. If you have livestock or poultry, secure a stand-by generator to run the well.

Food - Nonperishable foods that don't need cooking are ideal, like canned fruit, powdered milk, peanut butter, bread and crackers. Don't forget a manual can opener!

Heat - Have blankets, sleeping bags and extra clothes, including hats. If you have a fireplace, make sure there's kindling and a good supply of wood. Be extremely careful when using alternate heating sources. Some are not approved for indoor use and could be a fire or carbon monoxide hazard. Make sure your fire extinguisher is charged and working.

Information - Get a portable radio with extra batteries for local information and a NOAA Weather Radio for weather warnings. A wind-up or battery powered alarm clock might come in handy. Cordless phones don't work without power, so have at least one wired phone available. Remember to charge your cell phone.

If power does go out, take steps to protect your family and property:

•Limit freezer and refrigerator door openings. Food will keep longer if doors remain closed. Check items for spoilage before serving. Don't cook inside with charcoal.

•Try to keep outside door openings to a minimum and use blankets, sleeping bags and extra clothes to help stay warm. Dress in layers and wear a hat. Cover drafty windows and doors with blankets. Close off doors and stay in the room with your heat source. If the room has openings without doors, use blankets to cover them.

•If you use a portable generator, isolate it from our lines. Generators that are not isolated can feed back into our electrical system and possibly electrocute anyone coming in contact with those wires. If you don't have a double throw transfer switch installed, plug appliances directly into the generator using a properly sized extension cord.

•Turn off all large appliances that come on automatically, like electric water heaters, heat pumps and space heaters. Make sure appliances you were using when the outage occurred, like ovens, stoves, irons or power tools are turned off. Disconnect sensitive electronics like TVs, VCRs and computers to avoid damage from surges.

•When the power comes back on, give the electric system a chance to stabilize by gradually using the appliances you turned off. Use only the most essential first and wait 15 minutes on the others, including water and space heating.

•If you clear trees on your property, don't try to remove those tangled in power lines. Stay away from any downed lines (no matter what type) and notify us about them immediately.

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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