Helene became a hurricane Wednesday afternoon and is expected to make landfall in the Apalachicola area of Florida Thursday afternoon and as it moves inland is expected to bring “unprecedented” weather impacts on parts of Georgia including Hall County. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service (NWS) has issued a Tropical Storm Warning for the area.
HALL CO. SHERIFF’S OFFICE FACEBOOK POST (AS OF 5:00 P.M. WEDNESDAY):
“Hall County EMA (Emergency Management Agency) Director Zach Brackett says the US National Weather Service Peachtree City Georgia is using terms like “๐ฎ๐ง๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐๐๐๐๐ง๐ญ๐๐” and “๐ฅ๐ข๐๐-๐ญ๐ก๐ซ๐๐๐ญ๐๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ” to describe the weather impacts on Hall County and surrounding parts of North Georgia.
Both the ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐ญ๐ฒ ๐๐๐ก๐จ๐จ๐ฅ ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ญ and ๐๐๐ข๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฏ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ ๐๐๐ก๐จ๐จ๐ฅ๐ฌ have called off in-person classes for Thursday and Friday.
…Very basically, we’re looking at ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ญ๐จ๐ญ๐๐ฅ๐ฌ ๐จ๐ ๐๐-๐๐ ๐ข๐ง๐๐ก๐๐ฌ ๐๐๐ญ๐ฐ๐๐๐ง ๐ง๐จ๐ฐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐ ๐ซ๐ข๐๐๐ฒ, which translates to flooding. ๐๐จ๐ญ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฅ ๐ฐ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐จ๐ ๐๐+ ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ก are expected to start Thursday evening and continue into Friday morning; that translates to downed trees and power outages.
For now, we encourage you to be weather alert. If you can stay home, please do. If you can’t, then prepare for dangerous travel conditions.”
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On a related note, Jackson EMC has 180 outside crew members from contractors ready to work side-by-side with its own linemen to remove damaged trees and limbs and make outage repairs “as quickly as conditions and safety procedures allow,” according to spokeswoman Wendy Jones. “We will continue to reach out for additional resources as needed.”