A City of Moultrie lineman works to restore electricity during a break in the weather Thursday morning.

MOULTRIE — More than 3,300 customers of Colquitt EMC remain without power late Thursday afternoon.

Customers began suffering power outages when storms entered the area on Tuesday, the electric company said. With repeated rounds of severe weather, crews were unable to get everyone back online before more damage was reported.

“All line crews, service personnel, and right-of-way crews worked through the beginning of these storms through the night and into Wednesday morning,” the company said in a Thursday afternoon press release. “Both in-house and contracted crews assisted in the restoration.

“Wednesday morning, mutual aid was received from Middle Georgia EMC, Mitchell EMC, and Irwin EMC crews, along with S&S Construction,” the company said.

At its peak on Wednesday evening, about 21,800 of Colquitt EMC’s 72,000 meters were without power, the company said.

“Because of the extensive damage and outages, in addition to the 10 in-house crews, eight contract crews and seven mutual aid crews joined efforts to restore power to all 72,000 meters,” Colquitt EMC said.

The repair efforts were not without their dangers. While one lineman was working on Wednesday night, his own home was struck by lightning, according to a post on the Colquitt EMC Facebook page; the residence was a total loss. A colleague at Colquitt EMC has set up a GoFundMe page to support him and his family.

By about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Colquitt EMC’s website listed 3,374 customers without power: 1,263 served by its Moultrie office, 2,031 by Tifton, 69 by Valdosta, and 11 others.

Colquitt EMC’s President and CEO Danny Nichols issued a statement at 8:45 a.m. Thursday that was shared on the company’s website and social media. In it he described the challenge the company was facing.

“We recognize that some have been without service since Tuesday evening,” Nichols wrote. “I ask that you understand that power restoration is a sequential process. We must have service at the substations. From there, we must restore power to the main lines and then restore service to the branch lines.

“What complicates this process is the large scale damage that we have experienced since Tuesday evening,” he said. “There are numerous broken poles and toppled trees on our lines. We are sensitive to those who have been without power since the beginning of this storm. I can assure you that we are doing everything in our power to restore service to all of our members.”

Nichols added that radar images at the time of his message showed additional storms approaching, and over the course of Thursday they arrived, further drenching the area and hampering repairs.

The National Weather Service forecast heavy rain tonight and Friday with a chance of thunderstorms through at least Sunday night.

Georgia Power reported only a handful of outages across the area.

The City of Moultrie said about 750 of its customers lost power due to the storms, but power had been restored to all customers as of 11 a.m. Thursday.