UPDATED, WEDNESDAY, 1:20 P.M.:
Murray Israel followed up to say that electricity was restored to his home Tuesday night, but the family was still without heat until this morning because the furnace had to be repaired. It was damaged when a transformer blew out during the storm.
ORIGINAL REPORT POSTED TUESDAY, 5:47 P.M.:
On Tuesday morning, Murray Israel made yet another call to report a service outage to Cobb EMC. His East Cobb family, without power for nearly four days, was among the last customers waiting for the lights—and heat—to come back on.
He placed a service ticket with Cobb EMC, which has been indicating that the Israel residence on Ethan Drive, about a mile from Pope High School, has had its power restored.
Except by late Tuesday afternoon, that wasn’t the case.
For the last three nights, Israel and his wife have kept warm by the fireplace, and later huddled under blankets in the dark, and the cold, while their children have stayed with friends. Everyone else in their Hembree Hills subdivision has had power restored.
Israel was hoping Tuesday would be the day the lights went back on, since he and his family were eager to observe the first night of Hanukkah.
“It’s the Festival of Lights, and we have no lights,” Israel said in a phone interview with East Cobb News, whom he contacted about his situation, frustrated by Cobb EMC’s response. “It’s really, really cold” in the house.
He estimated the temperature inside was around 40 degrees, not much different than Tuesday’s high temperature, and didn’t want to spend another night like the last three.
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While the area that includes the Israels’ neighborhood was hard-hit by the winter storms, his particular issue is down to the micro-level. Israel said he noticed downed lines linking a transformer to his house.
“Our problem is just down to our house,” he said. “It’s an isolated situation that’s not affecting anyone but us.”
Kevan Espy, Cobb EMC’s senior vice president for marketing and corporate communications, told East Cobb News around 3 p.m. Tuesday that fewer than 200 of its customers—174, to be exact—were still without power, and that the electric cooperative’s goal was to be down to none by the end of the day.
“I would love to have this all taken care of later tonight,” Espy said of the remaining outages.
For the Israels, sundown also means the beginning of their religious observance. Tentative plans called for a family dinner out, for warmth and light, as much as food.
The storm, which began on Friday, knocked out service to an estimated 69,000 Cobb EMC customers, or about 40 percent of its customer base.
Espy said Cobb EMC called in additional crews from Florida, Tennessee, Alabama and elsewhere in Georgia to conduct around-the-clock repairs that in some places were more difficult than expected.
“It’s individual service calls like this that we’re down to tackling now,” he said, referring to the Israels’ outage.
Israel said his frustration was compounded by being told by customer service representatives the same thing over and over—that his lights were on when they weren’t—and not getting a satisfactory response when he sent a message via Twitter.
He said he’s filed a complaint with the Georgia Public Service Commission, but more than anything just wants to lights to come back on.
There were thousands of power outages in that particular area of Northeast Cobb. Hembree Hills is located between North Hembree Road and Davis Road, which was closed until Sunday afternoon due to downed trees and power lines.
Even on Tuesday, as East Cobb began to thaw out and students returned to school, work crews were still busy. Downed trees and branches were laying by the side of Holly Springs Road and Hembree Road, not far from Pope. Another crew was working on traffic light signalization at Holly Springs and Post Oak Tritt Road.
A message sent by Cobb County Government Tuesday morning said Cobb officials estimate the nearly 12 inches reported in some areas to be an all-time high in the county for a single storm.
By mid-morning Tuesday, nearly 200 locations around the county were being checked for debris and tree removal, according to Cobb spokesman Ross Cavitt, and that final clean-up may not be until after Christmas.
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