The thunderstorms that hit Northeast Georgia last Thursday caused extensive damage, power outages and road closures throughout Oglethorpe County.
Dozens of county roads were closed by downed trees and power lines, Commission Chair Jay Paul said, and U.S. 78 near the Athens-Clarke County line was blocked by at least one tree that fell during the high winds.
“I’ve been here 10 years and this is the one (storm) I can remember,” Oglethorpe County Public Works Director Adam Nation said.
Paul said most calls came from Arnoldsville, around Wolfskin Road, and from the Hutchins and Stephens communities.
Rayle EMC posted on Facebook that 5,000 of its customers lost power during the storm. Richard Heard, Rayle EMC’s director of member services, said most outages were repaired by 5 to 6 p.m. Sunday.
“We’re still trying to get a few back on,” Heard said Tuesday.
Heard said the entire Rayle EMC crew of “35 or 40 people with the co-op” worked overtime, and he put in 49 hours of overtime from Thursday night to Sunday night.
Heard said crews from Washington EMC, Hart EMC, Central Georgia EMC and Coastal Electric Cooperative, in addition to other crews, helped with repairs throughout the county and surrounding area.
Mary Sue Brewer, who lives on Lake Oglethorpe, wrote in an email that she had to throw away the food in her refrigerator after being without power for 40 hours. She said she lost 22 trees on her 2½ acres, but none of them hit her house, car, dock or canoe, but blocked her path to her dock.
“It is so frustrating because I had just finished cleaning up fallen branches from previous storms,” Brewer wrote Saturday afternoon. “I spent (Friday) picking up the lawn and can barely move. I am sad for my neighbors' losses of magnificent old oaks.”
Nation said the Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s Office, county and state road departments, Oglethorpe County EMS, every volunteer fire department in the county and residents chipped in to help.
“I just want to say a huge thank you to all of Rayle EMC employees, all of our county employees and all our fire departments for a great job they have done, and are still doing here in our beautiful county,” District 1 Commissioner Howard Sanders posted on Facebook on Saturday.
The Oglethorpe Senior Center opened on Friday for residents who didn’t have power.
“We have food, bathrooms and a way for you to cool off,” it posted on Facebook.
Statewide, the storms knocked out power to 315,000 Georgia Power customers.
Heard said it was one of the worst he’s seen.
“It wreaked havoc,” he said.
Both Paul and Nation said no injuries were reported. Paul said it would be hard to quantify the number of downed trees.
Heard thanked Nation for his efforts in pushing trees out of the way so EMC crews had access to downed lines and utility poles.
“I mean, (Nation) helped us a whole lot, he sure did,” Heard said.