More than 400,000 Georgia customers were still without power as Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday visited parts of the state where Hurricane Helene’s wrath was felt worst.
The storm pummeled South Georgia before it raged on across the state, ultimately leaving at least 25 Georgians dead and up to 1.3 million homes in the dark at its peak. The highest concentrations of outages are centered around Augusta, Savannah and Valdosta.
Georgia Power assured customers Wednesday morning that restoration efforts are continuing “around the clock.”
“Our crews are continuing to navigate flooded areas and standing water using special equipment designed for use in marshes to reach lines, work around and remove downed trees, and even rebuild parts of the grid,” said Georgia Power, in a post on the social media site X.
While Harris visited Georgia on Wednesday, President Joe Biden will travel to North Carolina and South Carolina.
Atlanta may have escaped the worst of the storm, but flooding issues have persisted after the city experienced the most rainfall it’s seen over a 48-hour period since the 19th century.
Major disaster declarations have been approved for 41 Georgia counties, making residents eligible for emergency payments and other Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance.
While that is less than the request for roughly 90 counties, including metro Atlanta’s core counties, to be included in the declaration, FEMA sometimes issues disaster declarations on a rolling basis to free up funds for storm-ravaged counties sooner as it works to complete evaluations on others. That’s what happened after Hurricane Idalia bombarded the Southeast in August 2023.
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