As parts of Georgia face a long recovery from Hurricane Helene, Georgia Power said Monday it is extending its suspension of electricity disconnections, plus waiving late fees and pausing other bill collection efforts.
The company had already paused disconnections in the aftermath of the storm, which knocked out power to about half the company’s 2.7 million customers following its damaging and deadly pass through Georgia less than two weeks ago.
On Monday, the company said it would extend the pause through at least Dec. 15. The temporary halt, along with the waiver on late fees, applies only to residential and business customers.
According to a filing with regulators at the Georgia Public Service Commission, Georgia Power disconnected about 24,000 customers across all billing classes for nonpayment in August, the most recent month of data available.
Latanza Adjei, Georgia Power’s senior vice president for customer experience, encouraged customers to continue paying their bills, but said the company recognizes “times are challenging for many Georgians even without the impacts of Helene and we want to do all we can to support them.”
Georgia Power’s outage map showed Tuesday the company has restored electricity to all but about 10,000 of the 1.3 million-plus customers who initially lost power after Hurricane Helene. Most of the remaining outages are concentrated around the hard hit Augusta area.
On top of the service disruptions Hurricane Helene caused for many, Georgia Power customers have faced a series of sharp rate increases. By early next year, the rate hikes that have been approved by regulators at the PSC since 2022 will have added about $45 to the average customer’s monthly bill, a recent analysis by the Southern Environment Law Center found.
As Georgia Power works to finish repairs to its system after Helene, it is staring down the possibility of more outages later this week. Hurricane Milton, a Category 4 storm churning in the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to inflict most of its damage in Florida, but parts of South Georgia could also see tropical storm force winds and heavy rain.
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