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Harriman leaders praise rapid storm response as utility reports 24 broken poles and seeks FEMA aid
Summary
City and utility officials described major ice damage from the Jan. 24 storm — roughly 24 broken poles and a peak outage of about 3,800 customers — praised mutual-aid crews and said the city will pursue FEMA reimbursement and other disaster assistance.
City officials and the local public utility described an extensive ice storm that began the evening of Jan. 24, causing wide, scattered damage to overhead lines and leaving thousands temporarily without power.
A utility representative reported the system saw roughly 24 broken utility poles and numerous downed crossarms and lines. The utility said its first outage call came about 8:10 p.m. on Saturday and that outages peaked near 3,800 customers at about 3:00 a.m. Sunday; most customers were restored by Monday, with the last customers restored Tuesday evening. “We hit our peak outages at 3:00 am Sunday morning which was about a little over 3800 customers without power,” the representative said.
Officials credited mutual-aid crews for accelerating repairs and listed several outside providers who assisted, including Gainesville Regional Utilities and other neighboring systems whose linemen arrived to supplement local crews. A city official thanked the mutual-aid teams and HUB staff for the response, saying the influx of external line crews was “probably the most we’ve had in a long time.”
City and utility staff estimated the storm damage at about $700,000 in materials and labor. Staff said they expect to seek federal reimbursement through FEMA (staff cited an estimated 75% FEMA reimbursement figure) and additional assistance from state emergency management. The utility said Rome County and Morgan County emergency services have been actively coordinating deadlines and reporting requirements with the utility as part of the reimbursement process.
Council members publicly praised the utility’s preparation and response. One council member said city departments and HUB had prepared in advance and that the cooperation “really blew me away,” adding, “70 people from somewhere else was helping get our power back on.” The council discussed continuing after-action reviews and identifying improvements for future catastrophic events, including phone-routing fixes and housing plans if longer outages were to occur.
The meeting record shows the council thanked individual staff members by name and noted that communications (including Facebook updates) were instrumental for reaching residents during outages. The city plans to continue coordination with TEMA and county emergency services as it finalizes reimbursement requests and after-action recommendations.
