Southern Company operating companies receive EEI Emergency Recovery Awards
<p>The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) presented <a href="https://alabamanewscenter.com/2019/01/10/edison-electric-institute-recognizes-alabama-power-for-restoration-efforts/" target="_blank">Alabama Power</a>, <a href="https://southerncompany.mediaroom.com/2019-01-10-Georgia-Power-earns-EEI-Emergency-Recovery-Award-for-restoration-efforts-following-Hurricane-Michael" target="_blank">Georgia Power</a> and Gulf Power with the Emergency Recovery Award during the EEI Winter Board and Chief Executives Meeting.</p>
<p>The Emergency Recovery Award is given to select EEI member companies to recognize their efforts to restore power to customers after service disruptions caused by severe weather conditions or other natural events. Winners are selected by a panel of judges following an international nomination process.</p>
<p>Alabama Power was presented with the award for their work responding to two weather related events.</p>
<p>First, for restoring power after an EF-3 tornado March 19 which caused significant damage and resulted in 31,000 outages. The second event was related to a rare “derecho” storm on June 28 that featured winds near 60 miles per hour, extended 400 miles and caused 230,000 outages in Alabama Power’s service territory.</p>
<p>Georgia Power and Gulf Power were recognized for their response to Hurricane Michael, the third-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. in modern recorded history. Georgia Power mobilized more than 5,800 personnel and dedicated over 315,000 hours to restoration. Service was safely restored to nearly all impacted customers four days after the storm.</p>
<p>Gulf Power successfully restored power to more than 95 percent of customers 13 days after Hurricane Michael left the Florida Panhandle and 30 hours ahead of the estimated timeline. Gulf Power, alongside storm crews from across the country, rebuilt a significant portion of the electrical system in Bay County, which serves approximately 103,000 customers.</p>
<p>Southern Company congratulates our operating companies for their superior performance and total commitment to serving our customers across our service territory.</p>
<p>Southern Company executive vice president of operations Stan Connally and executive vice president & chief transmission officer Billy Ball were in Palm Beach, Florida to accept the awards.</p>
