Crisp Co. Power Commission talks future electrical grid plans for future storms

CORDELE, Ga. – While Hurricane Idalia is out of the area, the severity of the storm this far north of the state line, has those with the Crisp County Power Commission concerned about the future of the electrical grid in the county.

Crisp County Power Commission General Manager, Chris Hewitt said that Crisp county narrowly made it out of Wednesday unscathed with the hurricane.

“We didn’t have too many impacts here. We were expecting worse than what we received. We just had a few isolated outages. We were able to get those back up and going pretty quickly. So we actually dodged a bullet yesterday, and didn’t have any significant damage,” said Chris Hewitt, General Manager, Crisp Co. Power Commission.

And, with Crisp county missing the brunt of Idalia’s onslaught, they were able to handle the more than 400 outages that were reported yesterday.

But, with communities like Crisp county not designed to take the full impact of a major hurricane, they’re saying how lucky they are to only have a few outages.

“We’re not designed to withstand some of the winds that you can get, especially hurricane force. We usually design for 60 mph winds, upwards of maybe 80 (mph) at the most. And so when you start getting hurricane force winds, sustained winds, that can be very detrimental to service,” said Hewitt.

And, Idalia’s impact brings back memories of another major storm, Hurricane Michael which passed through Crisp county in 2018…

Which has the power commission thinking about the future of the electrical grid.

“We learned from (Michael) that we can see hurricane force winds. And we do, we make efforts to secure our infrastructure and make it more resilient,” said Hewitt.

With Idalia’s impact still being felt in parts of the area, Hewitt has some advice for those still without power in south Georgia.

“Any time you’re around a downed power-line, we just encourage you to never get near it. Those can be dangerous, anything can happen. So we just encourage you to call anybody that may come into contact with a downed power-line…” said Hewitt.

And, while Hewitt says the impacts to Crisp county are minimal, it’s not too early to think about future-proofing the grid.

The Power Commission says they were called off from sending crews to harder hit areas such as Lowndes county as late as Thursday morning.

Brian Roche reporting.

Copyright 2023 CBS 44 South Georgia. All rights reserved.