Georgia Power on high alert after attack on N.C. power grid
ATLANTA - Georgia Power says the utility is always on heightened alert to help protect against threats like the one in North Carolina.
Along with constantly updating cyber-security measures, the company installing more ballistic walls on many of its substations that can withstand gunfire.
Thousand of customers have been without power for days in a central North Carolina county where someone opened fire on two Duke Energy electrical substations.
Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft says the company is working with the federal government to better understand what happened so it can better protect critical infrastructure here in Georgia.
“Georgia Power, and the entire electric industry, are in full of our neighbors in North Carolina as they work to restore power after the attack on the Moore County substations that left thousands without power,” said Kraft. “We are coordinating across the sector and with the federal government to better understand what happened, and to continue increasing our system resilience to prevent outages and also recover more quickly.”
Georgia Power’s grid has multiple interconnection points, including substations. Kraft says that allows them to automatically reroute power.
Georgia is also home to dozens of communities that operate their own municipal power company.
People in North Carolina are stunned by the deliberate attack on the power grid.
“This seemed to be too easy,” Gov. Roy Cooper said. “People knew what they were doing to disable the substation, and for that much damage to be caused — causing so much problem, economic loss, safety challenges to so many people for so long — I think we have to look at what we might need to do to harden that infrastructure.”
Authorities have said the outages began shortly after 7 p.m. Saturday after one or more people breached the gates of the two substations and opened fire. Police have not released a motive or said what kind of firearm was used.
Nearly 36,000 remained without power Tuesday, down from a peak of about 45,000.
Power is expected to be restored by Thursday morning.
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