‘All hands are on deck’: A look inside Georgia Power’s temporary homebase

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Dozens of trailers are parked in the Savannah Fairgrounds lot, serving as homebase for Georgia Power crews. 1,500 linemen and staff are living on the site provided by Emergency Disaster Services.

“We activate these for multi-day storm restoration. And this is a big one! So, it’s just extremely critical when we see storms with just catastrophic damage, like Hurricane Helene, that we’re able to launch sites like this with our partnerships. Bring the boots on the ground, get them here and keep them here.” Tess Stewart shares.

Stewart is part of the logistics team that coordinates this large-scale recovery team. Georgia Power has enlisted the help of Alabama Power and Mississippi Power, and other states have sent in crews to help.

By these sites being mobile, teams are able to assist and travel to areas still without power. Some of the linemen working are also without power.

“A lot of these linemen probably do leave their families in the same situation. And so, we want to provide what we can to them, knowing that someone else is providing to their family their assistance and getting their lives and their power up and knowing that they’re being safe.” Debbie Boyd says.

Boyd also works to make sure the men and women serving the community have all that they need outside of their working hours. These sites are complete with laundry service, shower trailers and a dining hall. The crews are working around the clock to ensure each customer has power and as of this morning, Chatham County is at 97% restoration.