UNDATED - Severe thunderstorms that rumbled across northeast Georgia Tuesday night left behind several homes damaged by downed trees, lightning-caused house fires and power outages.
Hall County Fire Chief David Kimbrell said his crews responded to three house fires that were caused by lightning: in the Price Road, Browns Bridge Road and South Hall areas. Each resulted in only minor damage to the electrical systems.
The boat rescue occurred on Lake Lanier at the entrance to Six Mile Creek, Kimbrell said, and involved two people who had to be pulled to safety after their boat began taking on water during the torrential rains that accompanied the storm.
Kimbrell said there were no injuries in any of the weather-related incidents Tuesday night, including several instances of trees being blown onto houses. Some of the houses, he said, were uninhabitable or the residents chose to spend the night with family or friends.
Countywide, Kimbrell said, "there were a lot of trees down."
Meanwhile, the Gwinnett County Fire Department reported two lightning-caused fires, both in Duluh... one at a house and the other an apartment.
The Helen Police Department reported a number of trees down but said there were no reports of widespread damage in that part of White County. Elsewhere in White County, there were reports of trees down and some minor property damage mostly to roofs of houses and chicken houses. (See separate story.)
Spokeswoman Bonnie Jones says that at the height of the storm Jackson EMC had about 10,000 people without power in Gwinnett, Hall, Jackson and Madison counties... 3,600 of them in the Gainesville district. The hardest hit area in the Gainesville district was the Holiday Heights/Mundy's Point section of Murrayville. Jackson EMC also had a concentration of power outages in the Gillsville area and scattered outages elsewhere in the district.
Wednesday
October 9th, 2024
6:14PM
