HELEN — Some may say this week’s rainfall in Helen and White County is historic, one for the record books – and there is a very good chance they’re correct.
National Weather Service cooperator Bill Kinsland of White County recorded 6.7 inches of rain between 1 and 6 p.m. Thursday. That was after all the earlier rain that has fallen over the past week, something over 14 inches.
Kinsland said the last time he remembers a storm dumping as much rain as quickly as what fell in White County Thursday afternoon was back in August 1967 — 50 years ago.
“Today has been a phenomenal day,” Kinsland said.
White County Public Safety Director David Murphy said the storm taxed emergency responders for much of the afternoon.
“This afternoon, we had a storm come through that had a lot of rain dump out of it,” Murphy said. “Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued. Flood warnings were issued.”
That heavy rainfall resulted in numerous flooding events, several landslides and even a swift-water rescue.
A woman’s vehicle was swept away by rushing waters, but emergency responders were able to rescue her, though the vehicle has not been recovered.
A short distance away, flooding near Black Bear Treatment Center off Helen Highway (Ga. 75) created its own set of problems, isolating the large campus from the outside world.
At that location, Murphy provided a quick update Thursday evening.
“This current location, Carolina Springs [Road], we have had a complete road washout,” Murphy said. “We had previous damage to it from the last storm on Tuesday.”
Other than the rescue, the issue on Carolina Springs Road was one of the most urgent because of the number of people affected.
“Right now, the Black Bear Treatment Center here on Carolina Springs, they were stuck in there, so at shift change they weren’t able to do their change,” Murphy said. “So right now we’re getting the road opened back up for them to get them evacuated out of there.”
Many sections of downtown Helen flooded, including streets, a section of Ga. 75 (Main Street), parking lots and private property. The city is bisected by the Chattahoochee River, which has its headwaters north of town.
In the Helen Waterpark & Helen Tubing lot on Edelweiss Strasse, a number of vehicles, including more than a dozen buses, were at least partially covered by the rising waters.
Alpine Mini Golf on Main Street flooded, as did the Chevron gas station and two lanes of Main Street. Numerous streets, parking lots and businesses were covered in mud for the second day in a row.
A small landslide occurred directly across from Helen Post Office, below the new hotel under construction off Dandy Lane.
The flooding in Helen came at a bad time for two long-running citywide events, the 45th-annual Helen to the Atlantic Hot Air Balloon Race and the 18th-annual U.S. Rider News Motorcycle Rally. On Thursday, city officials were optimistic both events would be able to go on, though modified due to the weather.
Similarly, the Nacoochee Valley was filled with floodwaters along Ga. 17.
Acres of farmland and pastureland was covered in water, resembling large new lakes with rushing currents.
“We have other areas in the county where the roads are being damaged and causing issues,” Murphy said.
One of those areas was along Ga. 75 (Helen Highway) just south of the bridge near the Indian mound, where sections of the bank eroded during the deluge of rain runoff.
That was only one trouble spot.
“We’ve got our county public works and state DOT here trying to mitigate the situation,” Murphy said. “We know there’s more rain coming in, so we’re concerned about that.”
White County again went under a Flash Flood Warning late Thursday night, and that warning remains in effect until 6 a.m. today (Friday).
