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 “𝐮𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝” and “𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞-𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠” to describe the weather impacts on Hall County and surrounding parts of North Georgia.
Both the 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭 and 𝐆𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 have called off in-person classes for Thursday and Friday.
…Very basically, we’re looking at 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟎-𝟏𝟓 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲, which translates to flooding. 𝐏𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝟔𝟎+ 𝐦𝐩𝐡 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.”