VALDOSTA - Helene bent pine trees and utility poles like toothpicks. It littered this city’s downtown with twisted sheet metal, blocks-long piles of tree limbs and bricks from fallen building facades.
Two days after the storm raced up from the Gulf of Mexico, power lines still sag along many of south Georgia’s roads, tangling with the pines and oaks that make navigating the region treacherous. Utility officials say it could take weeks for customers in remote corners of the state to get electricity again.
At least 17 deaths have been attributed to the storm, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp confirmed during a Saturday stop to tour damage. He likened Helene to a “250-mile tornado hit” and said after surveying the destruction that it looked as if a bomb had gone off.
“This storm spared no one,” Kemp said.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The death toll across four states — Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas — was least 52 as of Saturday afternoon, the Associated Press reported.
James Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, said the death toll could rise as cleanup efforts continue due to hazardous scenarios like power lines in flooded areas and unsafe driving conditions. He said GEMA and the National Guard are focused on getting roads cleared so health facilities can function properly and crews can restore power.
“We lose more individuals through the cleanup process due to dangerous situations,” Stallings said, adding that a GEMA member stepped on a live power line during cleanup, leaving him unconscious. “If you don’t have necessary travel, we’re asking you, keep those roads cleared.”
Gas shortages, power outages persist
Many in rural Georgia expect to be in the dark for days, even weeks. About 320,000 EMC customers and 500,000 Georgia Power customers remained without power Saturday afternoon, down from more than 1.1 million after the storm entered. The electric membership cooperatives that supply power to much of rural Georgia said damage from Helene surpassed that done by Hurricane Michael in 2018.
“Because of the extended time it will take to restore power in this complex situation created by Hurricane Helene, those who are medically fragile or have other critical electricity-dependent needs should consider temporarily seeking shelter in other areas that were less affected by this storm,” Georgia EMC said in a news release.
The city of Grovetown, outside Augusta, posted a bleak update via social media on Saturday.
“We have no updates as it pertains to power but have seen several crews around the area,” the city said. “This obviously does not mean power will be restored soon, necessarily, however, crews are working to make this process as efficient as possible.”
The city also found a creative solution to the result of so many inoperable refrigerators.
“If you would like to bring your perishable meats up to the Streets and Sanitation/Fleet Maintenance building at 1034 Newmantown Road we are feeding the community and our crews while supplies last,” the post said.
Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson announced a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew set to begin Saturday evening. Neighboring Columbia County enacted a similar measure. The Adel News-Tribune pleaded for people to stay away from an intersection that apparently became a destination for the storm weary.
“The worst traffic jam in Cook County history is now underway at I-75 exit 39,” the outlet posted at midday Saturday. “Please avoid this area if at all possible. Motorists from Florida and surrounding areas coming to Adel for gas and food.”
The same was true at a station in Valdosta where cars snaked for nearly a mile. Alaysha Balcom and her daughters arrived on foot after running out of fuel, carrying a gas can past five stations that had none.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Fallen trees, crushed homes
Neighborhoods around Valdosta State University were a maze. Austin Fosdick drove through the mess to check on his girlfriend’s house with his housemate, Nealy Hiers. The two Valdosta State juniors had stayed up on their side porch during the storm watching tree after tree fall. They heard dozens of loud cracks and pine trees snapping. Fosdick’s girlfriend’s house was OK, but the neighborhood wasn’t. Trees pierced roofs and wires hung so low drivers had to steer around them.
The university, like much of Lowndes County, has been without power. Several buildings sustained roof damage. Many trees have fallen on campus. Debris is widespread.
The school told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution it has canceled in-person classes next week. It hopes to conduct virtual instruction on Wednesday if the electricity is restored.
“The damage we have sustained is extensive, seemingly more than Hurricane Idalia a year ago,” university President Richard Carvajal said in a statement. “Thankfully, we have been here before, and we know how resilient our campus community is. Our team is working hard to do what is necessary to restore our campus and resume classes soon.”
Quitman Police Chief Roy Hart traveled from his small town west of Valdosta to Miller Hardware Supply in downtown Valdosta Saturday, hoping to find a generator part. He said he didn’t know when the lights would be back on in his town, but for now there was a light pole lying in his yard.
Hart slept on an air mattress in his office in the storm, moving out in the wee hours of Friday morning to clear roads. When he finally got home, he saw some 80 percent of his new metal roofing had been shorn off. He’d put up the metal panels over his singles after Hurricane Idalia tore them up last year. But for those shingles, he said, his home would have been drenched.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
‘Unprecedented’ rainfall
Other homes were smashed by trees that came down due to strong winds, causing several deaths across Georgia.
Kemp confirmed that a first responder was among those killed in the storm. Vernon “Leon” Davis, the Blackshear Fire Department’s assistant chief, died when a tree fell on his city truck shortly before 1:30 a.m. Friday, Pierce County Coroner William Wilson said. Davis was responding to storm calls when he was killed.
In McDuffie County, four deaths were reported, and in Richmond County, five deaths were confirmed. In the Thomson area, a 27-year-old mother and her 1-month-old twin boys died when a tree crashed through their mobile home, according to McDuffie Coroner Paul Johnson. All three were in bed together when they were killed.
In Washington County, a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl died after a tree fell on their home and trapped them inside the burning house, Augusta television station WRDW reported. Another person died in Grovetown in Columbia County after a tree fell on a mobile home, the station reported.
Charles Douglas Brownlee, 58, of Dublin, was killed early Friday when massive pine trees crashed through the roof of his house. A second person, Angela Edwards, 48, of Kentucky, died when the 18-wheeler she and her husband were traveling in was struck by a wind-blown tree along U.S. 441 about 20 miles south of Dublin.
Atlanta received an “unprecedented” 11.12 inches of rainfall in 48 hours, breaking the previous record of 9.59 inches in 1886, said Georgia’s State Climatologist Bill Murphey. Helene added to the 4 to 6 inches of rain Atlanta had already received by Thursday afternoon. Because of the excessive rain, areas across Georgia and even Atlanta became flooded with cars underwater and rainwater entering homes.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Agriculture takes a hit
Among farmers in Georgia, the loss was also great. Hurricane Helene made an “exceptionally damaging impact on farms” in South and Middle Georgia,” the Georgia Cotton Commission said. Impacted producers are reporting a 35% total loss of crops, as well as losses to farm structures, equipment and infrastructure. Kemp said more than 100 poultry facilities have been damaged or destroyed, about 15 dairy farms have been affected and dozens of other facilities were impacted.
“This has been a really tough year in the agricultural industry already. Economically, agriculture is in a really tough spot. And now, we are dealing the devastation — significant devastation — of Hurricane Helene from Valdosta all the way to Augusta, as the governor already mentioned, across all agricultural commodities,” said Tyler Harper, Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Agriculture on Saturday.
There is still no estimate for how much damage Georgia saw due to the hurricane that became a tropical storm when it entered metro Atlanta, but Kemp said he expects a large sum as damage continues to be assessed. He explained that a single contractor who helped clear roads and haul debris in southwest Georgia after Hurricane Michael in 2018 was $250 million. But Helene impacted all 159 counties of the state.
As the storm was still on the way, Anthony Adams drove to his mother’s house in Lake Park, about 20 minutes south of Valdosta, from his home in Alabama. The cattleman at first didn’t think it would be that bad.
Then the storm shifted east, striking South Georgia as a Category 2 hurricane after pummeling into Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 storm late Thursday. From his mother’s window, he watched a parade of debris blow past: shingles and tree limbs, a dog house and a carport.
As he surveyed the damage in Valdosta on Saturday, he marveled it hadn’t been worse. ”I’m surprised there’s one tree or one building standing.”
- Eric Stirgus, Jozsef Papp, J. Scott Trubey and Jennifer Peebles contributed to this story
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
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