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By mid-morning Wednesday, power outages across Georgia had cut off more than 100,000 customers — an estimate that kept rising steadily as the storm continued to punish the region.

Only a few scattered power outages were reported early Wednesday, but as ice formed, they grew to nearly 27,000 around 8 a.m., according to Georgia Power. More than 14,000 of the outages were in metro Atlanta.

By a little after 9.a.m., Georgia Power alone reported about 59,000 customers without power. That was up to 77,000 by 10 a.m. and to 85,000 ten minutes later. It was over 97,000 by 10:35 a.m.

Among other power companies, Greystone Power reported roughly 10,700 customers out — most of them southeast of Atlanta, according to spokeswoman Ashley Kramer.

Georgia Power said 2,284 lost power northeast of I-75, an area straddling Mt. Zion Blvd. and Lake Harbin Road. Not far away, about 761 customers along Jonesboro Road northeast of 75 were also without power.

Among others affected: nearly 800 customers along Peachtree Industrial Blvd. in Doraville, more than 400 customers along Hugh Howell Road between Tucker and Stone Mountain, and 375 customers west of South Cobb Drive just northeast of 285.

Earlier in the morning, a couple of incidents had turned off power to 2,017 customers near Canton, most of them east of 575 and northeast of Scott Mill Creek. The company expected to have power returned early this morning.

About 1,250 customers were without power east of Atlanta near Thomson. About half of those affected were north of I-20 along Route 17. About half of those affected were south of I-20, also along Route 17.

Further east, nearly 6,000 customers near August were without power. And there were many pockets of outages — often several hundred customers each — between Augusta and Atlanta.

Athens, in contrast, was still largely untouched by mid-morning.

The area reported no active outages Wednesday morning despite National Weather Service predictions for between .51 and .75-inch ice accumulation, an amount which usually results in felled trees and power lines. But as of 9:35 a.m., Athens remained plugged in. A fallen tree closed both lanes of the area’s Outer Loop near Atlanta Highway, but Athens-Clarke County police cleared the road by 6:10 a.m.

Nearby schools and colleges, including the University of Georgia, had already cancelled school for the day after Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency for Clarke County and Oconee County earlier this week.

Source: AJC.Com