Crews were continuing to work at mid-morning Thursday on restoring power in several places in northeast Georgia following some stormy weather Wednesday night.
Lumpkin County appeared to be the hardest hit area. Amicalola EMC reported at 9:00 that it had 54 people out of service there and 30 in Pickens County, two in Fannin, and 22 in Cherokee County. Jackson EMC was down to two outages, Habersham EMC, 12, and Sawnee, eight.
Georgia Power had a handful of outages in Buford, Gainesville and Braselton with most of its problems in metro Atlanta (see separate story on this site under “Georgia News”), although there were problems as far south as Americus, Columbus and Macon.
The Hall County School District (HCSD) issued a Facebook post apologizing an outage in the Chestnut Mountain area. “HCSD apologizes to any Chestnut Mountain families inconvenienced by the EMC power outage this morning. We are back on, and look forward to a productive day.”
Earlier Thursday, the Hall County Sheriff’s Office was urging motorists to avoid Shirley Road because public works crews were busy cleaning up mud in the roadway. The road was blocked at Highland Road.
The Flood Watch that had been in effect for north Georgia has been lifted by the National Weather Service (NWS) and it appears the worst of our soggy, stormy week has passed though more rain and possibly some storms are likely this weekend.
Rainfall at the Gainesville airport this week has totaled 2.97 inches. The top wind gust overnight Wednesday was 20 mph about 2:00 though slightly stronger gusts had occurred during the day Wednesday.
Here’s the updated 7-day NWS forecast for Gainesville:
Today
Mostly sunny, with a high near 58. West wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.
Tonight
Mostly clear, with a low around 30. Northwest wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
Friday
Sunny, with a high near 52. East wind 5 to 10 mph.
Friday Night
A 30 percent chance of showers after 1am. Partly cloudy, with a low around 36. East wind 5 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 15 mph.
Saturday
Showers. High near 54. East wind 5 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%.
Saturday Night
Showers. Low around 48. Chance of precipitation is 100%.
Sunday
Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before 1pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 60. Chance of precipitation is 70%.
Sunday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 26.
Washington’s Birthday
Sunny, with a high near 50.
Monday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 29.
Tuesday
Mostly sunny, with a high near 55.
Tuesday Night
A 30 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 38.
Wednesday
A 50 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 49.