By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Local power companies are joining crews working to restore power to victims of Hurricane Irma.

Central Alabama Electric Cooperative is helping in Florida, while Alabama Power is helping in Georgia.

Central Alabama Electric Cooperative sent a crew to Florida on Sept. 9 to assist the Clay Electric Cooperative in Keystone Heights, Florida. According to the CAEC press release, eight of the 16 people going were from the West Operations Center in Verbena.

“CAEC’s crews are now joining several other Alabama cooperatives in sending linemen to aid the Florida cooperatives, which is standard procedure for the nationwide network of cooperatives that work together during severe weather events, including hurricanes such as this one, tornadoes, and winter ice and snow storms,” the press release states.

As of Sept. 12, there were 113,000 members of the Clay Electric Cooperative without power.

CAEC provides power to more than 10,500 customers in Chilton County. During the storm, 217 Chilton County employees lost power.

“We will have more than 2,200 resources, including company line crews, support personnel, and resident contract line and tree personnel, in Georgia to help with storm restoration by the end of the day,” Mike Jordan of Alabama Power said on Sept. 13.

Alabama Power had 70,000 lose power during the storm. In Chilton County, 1,740 customers lost power.

Crews from both companies have power restored to local customers.