A severe winter ice storm has swept across North Carolina and Virginia, followed by over a foot
Question:
A severe winter ice storm has swept across North Carolina and Virginia, followed by over a foot of snow and frigid, single-digit temperatures. These weather conditions have resulted in numerous downed power lines and power outages, causing dangerous conditions for much of the population.
Local utility companies have been overwhelmed and have requested assistance from unaffected utility companies across the Southeast. The following table shows the number of utility trucks with crews available from five different companies in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida; the demand for crews in seven different areas that local companies cannot get to; and the weekly cost (in thousands of dollars) of a crew going to a specific area (based on the visiting company’s normal charges, the distance the crew has to come, and living expenses in an area):
Area (cost, in $1,000s)
Crews Crew NC-E NC-SW NC-P NC-W VA-SW VA-C VA-T Available GA-1 15.2 14.3 13.9 13.5 14.7 16.5 18.7 12 GA-2 12.8 11.3 10.6 12.0 12.7 13.2 15.6 10 SC-1 12.4 10.8 9.4 11.3 13.1 12.8 14.5 14 FL-1 18.2 19.4 18.2 17.9 20.5 20.7 22.7 15 FL-2 19.3 20.2 19.5 20.2 21.2 21.3 23.5 12 Crews Needed 9 7 6 8 10 9 7 Determine the number of crews that should be sent from each utility to each affected area to minimize total costs.
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