GULFPORT, Miss. – Mississippi Power is keeping a watchful eye on Isaac and is making preparations to restore service in the event that the storm damages the company’s electrical infrastructure. Mississippi Power urges customers to review their preparedness plans as the tropical storm tracks towards the U.S.

Mississippi Power is in a state of readiness. If Isaac disrupts service to any of our customers, the company is committed and ready to work around the clock until everyone’s service is restored.

Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Mississippi Power took innovative approaches to rebuilding and upgrading its transmission and distribution systems and constructed a state of the art Storm Center, which is protected by a 200-mph hurricane-rated enclosure. The Storm Center moves all of the company’s most critical functions to a centralized location in a remote area away from any waterways and coastline.

Hurricane season safety tips

• Have a family plan in the event of a storm. If you’re evacuating, know your route.
• If you’re planning to stay in your home, have enough food, water and supplies to last 3-4 days without power.
• If you see a downed wire, stay away and call Mississippi Power or local authorities immediately. Warn others to keep clear of the fallen line and avoid contact with trees, fences or anything else the line may be touching. If a power line comes in contact with a vehicle, passengers should stay in the vehicle until crews arrive and confirm it is safe to leave the vehicle.
• If you use a generator, plug appliances directly into the generator. NEVER try to power the house by plugging the generator into a wall outlet. Known as "backfeeding," this is an extremely dangerous practice that presents an electrocution risk to utility workers and neighbors served by the same utility transformer.
• Disconnect or shut off any appliances that will turn on automatically when power is restored. If not, when power is restored, several appliances may come back on at the same time and overload your circuits, or hot appliances may come on while you're away or asleep, posing a fire hazard.
• During the restoration process, safety comes first. We repair damage that will return power to the greatest number of customers in the least amount of time.

For more hurricane season safety tips, visit our Storm Center website, You can also find more information when you like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @MS_Power.

If your service is disrupted, we urge you to report the outage with the company’s automated reporting system at 1-800-ITS-DARK (1-800-487-3275). Also, representatives at our Customer Service Center are available 24 hours, 7 days a week at 1-800-532-1502.

Mississippi Power, a Southern Company subsidiary, serves approximately 186,000 customers in 23 southeast Mississippi counties.