Wind wreaking havoc on powerlines

From Erin Cook, Souther Rivers Energy:We have approximately 5149 members without power right now. Outages are spread across our system but mainly in Meriwether, Pike, Lamar and Upson counties. Crews have been working all morning but the wind is causing major problems with the saturated ground and weakened trees and limbs from all the previous severe weather we’ve had this year. This wind is basically snapping any trees and limbs that were damaged in the ice storm and uprooting trees in some areas all of which can easily tear down a power line even if they’re well outside our right of way. We caution everyone to stay away from any fallen power lines or trees or limbs that may be touching a line. Members can call our outage hotline at 1-866-244-4890 to report outages.1 p.m. UPDATE: Crews are making progress with outages down from over 5000 early this morning to approximately 676 as of 11:30 a.m. Two additional crews are on the way to assist with restoration efforts from Middle Georgia EMC in Vienna in addition to help from Harper’s Tree Service. The majority of the remaining outages are in Meriwether, Pike and Lamar counties. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we continue with restoration efforts and again, we urge everyone to use extreme caution around fallen power lines and trees or limbs that may be touching lines. Outages can be reported at 1-866-244-4890.-Erin Cook