UPDATED at 1:00 PM: Day 5 for Dothan Recovery

Matt Boster

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Posted by: Matt Boster
Date: Apr 30 2015 10:18 AM

DOTHAN: Today Dothan City Manager Mike West and City Department Heads met in the Boardroom at the Civic Center to give the City Commission an update.

There are still some customers with out power due to property damage and some folks still have damage. Billy Maze Director of Electrical Department stated the first night the city has close to 20,000 customers had no power. As of last night all Dothan City Electrical customers have full power restored.

According to the information provided by the Dothan Fire Department was that this was the worst storm in 20 years I this area.

UPDATED @ 1:00 PM

CITY-WIDE STORM UPDATE (4-30-15, 1:00PM)

Dothan Utilities (DU) has reported that as of 2:00am this morning (April 30, 2015), all work activities to restore power service was completed and they had stopped receiving calls!

If your service (masthead, meter base) is NOT damaged and you DO NOT have power, please call Dothan Utilities at 615-3302.

The DU Dispatch Center will run through the night and two DU crews will be on call to provide a timely response to any reports.

Some Impressive Numbers: At the height of the storm (6:00pm on Saturday, April 25, 2015), there were 19,159 Dothan Utilities customers without power. Approximately 12 hours later (6:00am on Sunday, April 16, 2015) that number was down to 5,000 customers. Also, after receiving their first page at 5:26pm on Saturday, April 25th, the DU Dispatch Center was open, staffed and operational by 7:00pm that same night.

DU reports that the recent storm resulted in 45 broken power poles and 50 transformers that had to be replaced. Along with the total number of customers without power at the height of the storm, DU Director Billy Mayes has described the damage that Dothan received as being “at hurricane level.”

With power restored to the City, DU’s focus is now on facility restoration. DU assessment crews are currently out looking at power poles to determine those that are leaning or cracked and cleaning-up damage around substations.

Falling limbs resulted in an outage at Kelley Drive this morning. Leaning trees and falling limbs may continue to cause power interruptions.

For the foreseeable future, Environmental Services will continue to work 12 hours shifts, 7 days a week in their efforts to collect trash and storm debris.

Citizens are asked to separate their vegetative debris (trees and limbs) from all of their other trash as much as they possibly can!

Public Works Director Jerry Corbin has stated that the City’s debris removal efforts are going faster than originally anticipated.

Leisure Services reports that with power being restored at Eastgate Park last night, all of their recreational facilities are up and running!