GLYNN COUNTY, GA. — Georgia Power says, between Brunswick and St. Simons Island, more than 10,000 power outages were reported among its customers in Glynn County, alone.
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The First Alert Weather Team first tracked the winter storm in our local counties starting around 6:30 PM on Tuesday. Georgia Power’s estimated time of getting all of the outages in Glynn County restored is 6:00 PM Thursday, almost two full days later.
“It hit us hard,” said Kimberly Lane, who lives in Brunswick, “we weren’t prepared for the hardness.”
Lane has lived in the city for the past 11 years, near her niece. In that time, she tells Action News Jax’s Finn Carlin she’s never had to prepare for a winter storm like this.
“This town’s not equipped to handle this kind of storm,” Lane said.
Lane said her niece lost power for more than 18 hours during the storm. She toured local neighborhoods to find tree branches and power lines torn down after it moved through southeast Georgia.
“These storms are getting worse and worse,” said Lane, “something’s got to give.”
A similar message was shared by Glynn County spokesperson Lawton Dodd, who tells Action News Jax crews were working constantly to clear roads of icy conditions and restore outages, something made more difficult by the damage.
“The response has been an all-out response,” said Dodd, “getting to the lines to get power restored has been a real challenge.”
Glynn County, along with Brantley County, put a curfew in place from Wednesday night through Thursday morning to keep drivers off the streets while they were still icy. Glynn County schools and offices also remained closed on Thursday while crews worked to restore power outages.
If there’s anything Lane hopes will come out of this, it’s that lessons are learned by the county going forward.
“Get ready ahead of time. Once we hear the weatherman say ‘get ready and prepare,’ then get ready and prepare,” Lane said.
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