Since Wednesday night’s peak power outage across the state, Alabama Power Company has been able to restore power to more than 357,000 people, said Fredey Padilla, an external affairs official for the Western Division of Alabama Power.
Still, despite the high number of power restorations statewide, Padilla said there were still 54,665 customers without power across Alabama. There are still 24,471 customers without power in the Western Division of Alabama Power, which spans north to Winston County, south to Marengo County, east to Bibb County and west to the state line, Padilla said.
Of those 54,665 customers without power, Padilla said 15,326 customers are those living in Tuscaloosa.
In order to restore power statewide, Padilla said the company has relied on the mobilization efforts by their repair crews, as well as the efforts of other crews from across the nation.
“Right now, we have contractors from as far away as Maryland working in various locations throughout Alabama,” Padilla said. ‘We have devastation all across the state, so, to help us work more quickly, we’ve been getting a lot of help from our sister companies, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power and Georgia Power. It’s really a joint-effort between all of us and contractors.”
In addition to help from their sister companies, Padilla said Alabama Power has sent many of their own employees all across the state to some of the more heavily damaged areas to assist with the collaboration efforts.
“It’s just rebuilding,” Padilla said. “We had damage to every phase of our company in regards to what allows you to get power – the transmission structure, substations and distribution areas. Even with that, we have 6,300 personnel members on the ground across the state.”
Padilla said the company has relied heavily on Twitter to assist them in getting breaking news and other forms of information out quickly.
“We have someone working with corporate media relations stationed in Birmingham who has been monitoring our Twitter account,” Padilla said. “I saw we’ve been getting a lot of re-Tweets from organizations across the state to update our customers about their power. It’s been a great tool to not only get power numbers out, but also provide safety messages to everyone. Twitter has definitely played a key role in this recovery process.”
Padilla said the company has also relied heavily on the people in the numerous cities trying to recover.
“They’ve been doing everything in their power to allow us and assist us in doing what it is we need to do to restore power to everyone,” Padilla said. “Something like this takes a lot of heads going together to make it work.”
Customers can get updates with Alabama Power by following the company on Twitter at @alabamapower or calling the customer service line at 800-245-2244.
