EPB crews prepare to repair powerlines and restore power Tuesday on Tremont Street in north Chattanooga.Fewer than 11,800 customers were still without power on Wednesday morning, according to EPB officials speaking from the power distributor's control room.
More than 500 workers from across the Southeast were split into 120 crews to bring the grid back online in a massive effort tasked with repairing about 829 damaged or severed connections.
The power company was able to bring about 10,000 customers back online overnight, through both line repair as well as switching power from one part of the grid to another from headquarters.
Danna Bailey, vice president of corporate communications, attributed the quick reduction of outages from 59,000 initially in part to the utility's Smart Grid, which reduced many outages from days to minutes by intelligently re-routing electricity from damaged lines.
"If the power is back on before the time it would take someone to get in their car and drive across town, that's the Smart Grid," she said. "We can't stop an event like this from happening, but we can make the outages shorter."
For more, pick up a copy of tomorrow's Times Free Press.