Christopher C. Womack
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer at Southern
Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today.
Our entire Company, including our premier, state-regulated electric, gas and utilities [Phonetic], continued to perform well during the third quarter, especially as our dedicated employees across Southern Company came together as one team in response to Hurricane Helene. The resolve and the professionalism of our employees has never been more evident than was demonstrated through the recent storm restoration efforts in Georgia.
Before Dan provides an overview of our financial results, I'd like to share our story from this unprecedented weather event. Hurricane Helene was a storm of historic magnitude. Its aftermath was met with an extraordinary response from our dedicated team across Southern Company, our mutual assistance partners, state and local first responders and emergency management agencies and government officials all across Georgia. Persistent rain, extreme flooding and heavy winds resulted in what can only be characterized as devastation to many of the communities we serve, with the destruction stretching hundreds of miles, impacting the Eastern two-thirds of the entire state. Ultimately the damage caused by Hurricane Helene was the most destructive in Georgia Power's 140-year history, exceeding the damage caused by the largest -- the three largest storms to impact Georgia Power's service territory combined.
Helene entered Southern Georgia as a Category 1 hurricane and resulted in 53 out of the 159 counties in the state being declared major disaster areas by the Federal Energy Emergency Management Agency, with considerable damage to transmission infrastructure, nearly 12,000 damaged utility poles and some 1,500 miles of down wires, the equivalent of the distance between Atlanta and Phoenix, Arizona. Our customers experienced over 1.5 million outages in the wake of the storm. With the support of resources from across North America, a workforce of well over 20,000 worked around the clock to safely reconnect customers through extremely difficult conditions.
Commensurate with the devastation seen in our communities, much of our utility infrastructure was damaged beyond near repair and significant portions of our system in the affected regions required a complete rebuild. Thanks to the contributions of our utility industry partners and especially thanks to the unwavering commitment of our own hardworking dedicated crews, many of whom lived in these same communities and some of whom endured destruction to their own homes, the restoration and rebuilding efforts were 95% complete within eight days, with power restored to over 0.5 million customers within the first 48 hours. We are incredibly proud of our team's response and internally grateful to be a part of an industry that works so well together in times of need.
Many of the communities we are privileged to serve across Eastern Georgia have a long road ahead to recovery. Georgia Power, Atlanta Gas Light, Southern Company are contributing to organizations to aid these communities. And Georgia Power has taken additional steps to provide support and resources to our customers in Georgia. In our business model, customers are at the center of everything we do and our commitment to the communities and customers we serve has never been more important than in times like these. I am extremely proud of our team's exceptional efforts to clearly demonstrate that we are a citizen wherever we serve each and every day.
Dan, I'll now turn the call over to you for a financial update.
