Mississippi Power crews are moving out into the company’s service territory this morning to begin assessing damage caused by Hurricane Ivan. As of 8:00 am Thursday, approximately 70,000 customers were out of service, primarily along the Gulf Coast. That number may increase as the storm continues to impact the northern portions of the company’s service area throughout the day.

“We began experiencing outages as Ivan moved onshore last evening,” said Mississippi Power spokesman Kurt Brautigam. “Our hardest hit areas at this time are in Jackson County, which was closest to the storm’s landfall.”

Approximately 50,000 customers along the Coast lost service during the night, including those in Pascagoula, Moss Point, Ocean Springs, Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi. By early morning, outages were also occurring in the company’s northern service areas, as the remnants of Ivan continued to move beyond the Coast.

“Our main focus, now that the winds have subsided along the Coast, is to assess the damage sustained by our system,” said Brautigam. “We hope to know by early afternoon what we face in terms of downed trees and any structural damage. We have already dispatched assessment teams and initial work crews to begin our restoration effort.

“Although we don’t know the extent of damage for sure, it’s obvious our area has been impacted seriously in Jackson County. It’s important to remember that there are downed power lines and other dangers everyone must be concerned with. We want to be sure to remind everyone that they need to be very cautious. We would recommend that people stay very close to home if at all possible.”

Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, serves more than 193,000 customers in 23 southeastern Mississippi counties.