VALDOSTA – Tens of thousands South Georgia residents were out of power Monday in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

And the wait for some could stretch to days, even a week.

Power officials were balancing restoring power with keeping personnel safe.

Georgia Power reported more than 41,000 customers in Valdosta-Lowndes County and surrounding area customers without power during the height of the high winds.

Holly Crawford, a Georgia Power spokesperson, said Monday the utility has three staging areas to handle power outages in Valdosta, Tifton and Macon. 

She said there were more than 277,000 houses in Georgia without power Monday morning and confirmed there were 18,000 in Lowndes County. 

Georgia Power has 3,500 personnel ready to go but were waiting for the wind and rain to die down. She said Georgia Power cannot send crews in unsafe conditions, and even if they fixed a line, the weather might take it down again. 

“We’re telling customers, and this may not be the case, to be prepared for power to be out for a couple of days or up to a week,” Crawford said. “That may not be the case, but we want to make sure our customers are prepared and that they get their phones and devices charged while they still can.”

Joni Fox, a Colquitt EMC representative, said Colquitt had 51,000 outages across seven counties.

“We will be working to get the power restored as safely as possible,” she said. “In the meantime, we want people to stay safe and avoid down power lines.”