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Restoring Your Power


How Walton EMC Prepares for Outage

How Walton EMC Prepares for an Outage

The work needed to quickly restore service after a large power outage begins long before it ever occurs.

  • Our comprehensive storm plan is reviewed and revised every year to make sure Walton EMC is prepared to restore power quickly.
  • Most outages occur when trees or branches fall on power lines due to high winds or frozen precipitation. Our right-of-way contractors keep trees and other growth trimmed away from power lines. That prevents outages and gives Walton EMC workers easier access to problem areas.
  • Our computerized outage reporting system can handle thousands of reports an hour and aids our system control in allocating resources.
  • Substations and parts of our grid are remotely monitored by computer. The system automatically alerts us to many problems on our system.
  • All Walton EMC employees are cross-trained to help with outages.
  • The EMCs of Georgia have agreements in place for mutual aid in times of crisis. We can quickly get extra manpower to assist in power restoration.
  • Our system control constantly keeps an eye on weather radar and current forecasts to have crews standing by for fast response.

We prioritize by making repairs that will restore power to the most consumers at one time.

How We Restore Your Power

    1. Transmission lines bring power to our system from generating plants. Walton EMC does not repair transmission lines.
    2. Substations interface transmission lines with the backbone of Walton EMC’s grid and must be functioning before any other part of our system can carry power. Substations are Walton EMC’s first priority in restoring power.
    3. Trunk lines serve as the backbone of our grid and carry electric power from substations throughout our service territory. After substations are functioning, we turn our attention to the backbone of our grid.
    4. Taps feed off of the backbone of our grid and carry electricity out to smaller numbers of consumers. Repairs on taps begin after the backbone of our grid is functioning.
    5. Service wires supply power to only one or two locations. Repairs to service wires come last.