Atlanta Gas Light continues to make great progress following Hurricane Helene

After Hurricane Helene moved through much of our Atlanta Gas Light territory in Georgia, bringing hurricane and tropical storm force winds, heavy rains and flooding to some areas, our crews from Augusta to Valdosta are making significant progress to restore natural gas service to our customers.  After our initial first phase of damage assessment and repairs in the immediate aftermath of the storm, we are now into the second phase of Restoration as we restore service to as many customers as we physically can.

“Overall, our infrastructure survived Helene’s wrath fairly well,” said Dean Marianos, Vice President of Operations for AGL who oversees the Company’s heavily impacted East Georgia and Southeast Georgia territories. “Our focus right now is to restore gas services as quickly and safely as possible as customers return to their homes to receive service, particularly in the hardest hit areas of Augusta, Valdosta, Savannah, Jesup and Vidalia.” Most of the damage, he noted, is due to uprooted trees that have damaged service lines, as well as trees that have landed on gas meters at homes and businesses.  

“To date, we have seen more than 1,100 total incidents across our system related to Helene, and all have been made safe. Service to approximately 60 percent in these hard hit areas have been restored. For the remaining 40 percent, we can’t restore service just yet due to the extent of damage to homes and business. Once the customer is ready, we can respond and restore.”

In the interim, we are proactively visiting sites to see if they are ready for service and working closely with Georgia Power and other energy providers in the state to ensure a safe process. “We anticipate additional damage in some areas once trees are cleared and power is restored. We have about 150 employees in Augusta (as of Oct. 4) assessing and restoring service as quickly as possible.”

Working with customers to provide relief

In addition, AGL is working in a number of ways to help customers and inform stakeholders during the restoration phase, including:

• Suspending shutoff for SONPs during our restoration period (we will evaluate resuming SONPs at a later time)
• Providing energy assistance through our partnership with United Way and asking our Georgia Marketers to provide bill assistance and payment plans as well
•  Coordinating our response with other energy providers in the state to ensure a safe process
• Updating local and state leaders on our continued progress until every customer’s service is restored.

“We can’t say enough about how all of our employees across not only AGL but also across GAS and Southern Company have pitched in to help one another, he said. “Our employees are doing amazing work, and we appreciate what each of them are doing every day on behalf of our customers.

“We continue to make a lot of progress in Augusta during the first week of the storm and have completed over 1,000 emergency orders in Augusta alone since the storm hit,” said Roy Chapman, Regional Director of Operations for East Georgia. 

“This historic leak volume the last 7 days is greater than the number of leaks we have seen the first 5 months of the year in Augusta,” he said. In addition to responding to leaks, he added that they have performed a visual damage assessment on all impacted areas and utilized our mobile leak detection vehicles, ATV’s and an airplane to make sure we assess all areas including those that remain impassable by normal means.

“We greatly appreciate the additional resources and coordinated assistance we have received. This historic ‘One Team’ response has been emotional for me. I am truly humbled to have so many people so willing to help. I’d like to offer a special thank you to the families of our employees who are sacrificing as well. Our restoration efforts will be ongoing in the coming weeks as we get continue to safely work to restore service to all those that are ready for us.”

Craig McGalliard, Regional Director of Operations for Southeast Georgia, agrees. “Valdosta, Vidalia and Jesup were hit particularly hard by Helene, and we continue to make progress to restore service in these areas," he said. 

"Our teams there have been amazing and have shown a tremendous amount of dedication. Just getting to some homes and businesses given the widespread damage this week with downed trees and cell towers has been a big challenge, but we continue to make great progress every day.”

Pictured below: AGL President and CEO Pedro Cherry speaks to employees recently in Augusta.

Pictured below: Fallen tree on powerlines in a community in Augusta.