Few areas of the nation see more lightning strikes than South Mississippi, and lightning activity has increased significantly this summer compared to past years. In July alone there were 14,777 lightning strikes in Mississippi Power’s 23-county service area (nearly half occurring in the company’s Coast division), the most activity during that month in the last ten years. July’s total more than doubles that of 2001 and is more than three times greater than 2000.

“Lightning is a major cause of damage for any electrical system,” said company spokesman Kurt Brautigam. “About 22 percent of outage minutes for our customers can be attributed to lightning, and this year it’s even higher. The lightning storms we’ve seen this summer have often been particularly severe and they seem to have caused more damage and outages than normal.”

A single stroke of lightning is so powerful that it doesn’t have to directly hit electrical equipment to play havoc with it. Induced strokes, which are indirect strikes that hit a nearby tree or other object and then travel to a power line, are more frequent than direct lightning hits.

“We have numerous ways we try to minimize the damage lightning causes to our system, but sometimes there is only so much you can do,” Brautigam said. “With a direct hit, all equipment is subject to damage. We’ve seen transformers rupture or had them knocked off poles.”

This summer, Mississippi Power crews have had to replace a significantly higher number of transformers and repair other damaged facilities than in past years when the weather was not as severe.

“When equipment is hit, it must be repaired or replaced, often with severe weather still going on,” said Brautigam. “Our employees are used to going the extra mile when it comes to restoring service, however. They understand that maintaining the reliability of our system is part of what customers value about our service. Mississippi Power’s record regarding customer outages has long been among the industry’s best, in spite of the challenges posed by serving one of the most lightning prone areas of the country.”

Mississippi Power Company, a subsidiary of Southern Company, serves more than 192,000 customers in 23 counties in Southeast Mississippi.

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