When strong winds ripped through the Chattanooga area Wednesday evening, the EPB Smart Grid prevented or auto-restored power to more than 8,700 customers who would have otherwise experienced a duration outage, EPB officials said.

J.Ed. Marston, EPB vice president, said, "As a result, a storm that would have knocked power out in more than 16,000 homes and businesses only effected about 7,800.

"EPB crews immediately began working to repair faults caused by the wind storm, restoring power to all but about 3,000 customers within a few hours. Crews continued working through the night and had restored power to all but 500 customers as of 5:30 a.m.

"Because of the nature and severity of the damage, EPB projects that remaining repairs will be completed later today."