PENSACOLA, Florida – While much of the East Coast braces for the impact of Winter Storm Jonas, Gulf Power employees are getting ready to deploy storm crews to North Carolina to prepare for possible widespread outages due to the storm that is expected to dump anywhere from 18-24 inches of snow from Virginia to Washington D.C.

Crews and support staff from Gulf Power will leave Friday to help Duke Energy should their customers experience outages due to ice and heavy snow. The crews will strike out from various locations including Pine Forest, Milton, Crestview and Panama City.

“This is a monster storm with power crews along the Mid-Atlantic states already preparing for ice by cutting limbs down over power lines,” said Rick DelaHaya, Gulf Power spokesperson. “Our crews are very experienced at storm restoration and we are always happy to help other utilities in the face of a major storm. While we don’t train in the cold weather and snow, our customers benefit as our crews are able to hone their skills should anything happen back here at home. This is what we do — restore power and hope, whether right here at home or for our neighbors.”

The last time Gulf Power storm crews deployed was in July 2015 to help sister company Alabama Power after severe storms swept through the area leaving more than 35,000 customers without power in the state, including 23,000 in the Birmingham metro area.

Follow our crews’ progress on Gulf Power’s Facebook page.