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Morning News

Power Crews Scatter Across Georgia to Repair Damage Caused by Weekend Ice Storm

Aired January 24, 2000 - 10:08 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now from the campaign trails of the Midwest to the wake of the winter storm here in the South. A deep weekend coating of ice and snow froze overnight in Charlotte, North Carolina, making for a long and slippery morning commute. Many school systems have closed their doors for the day and authorities are asking people to stay off the roads if possible.

In Atlanta, warmer temperatures this morning are allowing the metro area to break free of a paralyzing ice storm, but some weather- related problems may linger for the days to come.

For the latest, let's turn to reporter Randy Travis of our affiliate WAGA.

Randy, a warm, thoughtful good morning sending out your way in the cold.

RANDY TRAVIS, WAGA REPORTER: Yes, well, actually, it's raining and it's windy, Daryn. but things could be worse. It could be freezing rain right now. That's why folks here feel the news is certainly better today than it was yesterday. That's when as many as 340,000 Georgia power customers found themselves in the dark when the icy conditions pulled down the trees which in turn pulled down the power lines.

Right now, the number of people without power is a more manageable size, about, oh, 130,000 folks all across North Georgia. But some of them may not get back on-line, I'm told, until Wednesday.

Now, the Georgia Power command center got cranked up this weekend for the first time since Y2K weekend, but the folks here -- what the folks here feared the most might happen actually did not happen. The water did not refreeze last night and pull down even more trees. You know, that's the vicious cycle that makes ice storms just so, you know, insidious. Instead, most of the ice just simply melted away, and Georgia Power reports no new problems overnight.

But for homeowners who went to sleep with their power off, they are waking up this morning to the exact same situation. That's because Georgia Power crews worked until about midnight last night, then they stood down, got some rest, and got back up again and hit the road about 6:00 this morning, along with some help from some of their sister affiliates -- sister utilities in Alabama, in Savannah and in South Georgia.

I'm told about 1,500 Georgia Power workers are scattered right now all over Northeast Georgia, not to mention crews assigned to the various electric membership coops that serve the more rural areas of Georgia. But the worst -- it seems like the worst is now behind us, so I suppose you could say the first storm of the century is officially over here in Georgia.

Reporting live from Atlanta, I'm Randy Travis for CNN.

KAGAN: Randy, thank you very much.

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