Power Outage Risk in Georgia

Georgia's outage exposure runs along a corridor that many residents do not associate with direct hurricane strikes. The state sits far enough inland that storms typically weaken before arrival, but they still carry enough wind and rain to cause widespread grid damage across the southern half of the state. Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, is the dominant utility.

When Hurricane Michael crossed into Georgia in October 2018 as a Category 3 storm, roughly 385,000 Georgia Power customers lost service. Damage included more than 3,500 spans of downed wire, approximately 1,000 broken poles, and over 200 damaged transformers. Southwest Georgia communities like Albany, Americus, and Bainbridge bore the worst of it, with restoration in the Bainbridge area not completed until October 16, six days after the storm entered the state. Across all Georgia utilities, the U.S. Department of Energy reported over 424,000 total customer outages.

For backup sizing, the inland hurricane pattern means that damage concentrates in rural and small-city areas where utility crew staging takes longer and mutual aid must travel farther. Portable stations in south Georgia should be sized for extended runtime rather than brief overnight gaps.