CAYCE — With June 1 marking the start of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season, SCE&G is reminding customers to prepare now for the possibility of a hurricane impacting South Carolina.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts anywhere from six to 13 named tropical storms will form in the Atlantic Ocean between now and Nov. 30. The forecast calls for three to six of those storms to become major hurricanes.

SCE&G President of Retail Operations Keller Kissam said the company prepares year round for the potential impact of severe storms.

“We periodically review our storm plans, conduct drills, and are in constant contact with other utilities within our mutual assistance group, some of whom SCE&G has already provided storm response assistance this year,” he said. “Throughout the year we also trim thousands of miles of power lines and inspect our poles and wires to condition our system to withstand or quickly recover from inclement weather.”

Other than having power quickly restored, the thing people want most from their utility during an outage is communication, said Kissam.

“More customers are turning to social media channels for information they can plan and act on during emergencies. We have updated our social media channels for the 2015 storm season and we encourage customers to follow us on these channels.”

• Twitter — www.twitter.com/scegnews

• Facebook — www.facebook.com/scegnews

• Flickr — www.flickr.com/scegnews

• Youtube — www.youtube.com/scegnews

Other important communications channels SCE&G customers can turn to include

• Outage Map: SCE&G updates its interactive outage map (www.sceg.com/en/storm-center/) frequently.

• Mobile devices: Customers can use mobile devices to report and check the status of outages at www.sceg.com/mobile

• Text messaging: Residential electric customer or small/medium business commercial customers can report power outages and check their outage status via text messaging using a text-enabled cell phone/mobile device. Customers must first register their cell phone number to their SCE&G account. Visit www.sceg.com/en/storm-center/outage-text-messaging/ for information on how.

• Telephone: SCE&G’s customer service department is staffed 24/7. For non-emergency issues call 800-251-7234; for power outages or to report downed/sparking power lines, call 888-333-4465; and to report gas leaks, call 800-815-0083.

More information on SCE&G’s restoration process is available at SCEG.com.