Flooded roads, power outages and downed wires have plagued DeKalb County as Michael has been downgraded to a tropical storm.
No weather-related injuries have been reported, but a fatal multicar wreck on I-20 East near I-285 created delays, Channel 2 Action News reported. It is not yet known if road conditions contributed to the crash.
The wreck comes in the wake of Michael, now weakened to a tropical storm, which has claimed two lives, including an 11-year-old girl in southwest Georgia. Michael became a Category 4 hurricane Wednesday morning and made landfall in Mexico Beach just before 2 p.m., Channel 2 reported. The storm is the strongest to make landfall in the Florida Panhandle.
Dive crews in the county have been busy since late Wednesday night, DeKalb fire Capt. Dion Bentley said. So busy, in fact, many could not tend to a call about a car trapped in the McAfee Park Lake in Decatur, Bentley said. No one was in the car, which was pulled from the lake Thursday morning.
How the car got in to the lake is still being investigated.
“It’s all speculation at this time,” Bentley said.
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Outside of the wreck, there have been no reports of severe damage in DeKalb.
“In many cases it seems like we were spared,” Bentley said.
DeKalb County was under a flood warning after the region reportedly received between three and four inches of rain. The National Weather Service expired the warning just before 6 a.m.
More than 1,500 customers are without power in DeKalb, according to Georgia Power.
DeKalb County emergency officials warned about flooding and downed trees in the area once the county was projected to get winds between 25 and 30 mph. Wind gusts were expected to reach 40 mph Wednesday night to Thursday morning.
CLOSINGS| School and business closings
PHOTOS| Florida Panhandle battens down for Hurricane Michael
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