GAINESVILLE -- While hundreds in the county were still without power as of Saturday afternoon, Hall County officials say things were beginning to return to normal after the fallout of Tropical Storm Irma.
Hall County Emergency Management Director David Kimbrell told the county commission at their Thursday meeting that crews were swamped with reports of downed trees and power outages when the former hurricane blew through Monday afternoon and evening, bringing winds gusts of over 50 miles per hour.
"Between lunch time Monday and 8:00 Wednesday when the storm, basically, was out of the way there were over 2,000 911 calls and 1,177 calls came in on the administrative lines," Kimbrell said, adding that both of those numbers were more than double their daily averages.
He showed statistics that said 80 percent of the more than 4,000 roads in the county were at least partially blocked at some point during the storm and at its peak 65 percent of people in the county were without power. Kimbrell said the storm had much broader impact than weather events they were used to.
"I remember back in the '98 tornado, you could track that, everybody else was ok, the ice storm typically affects the north part of the county. This is all over," Kimbrell said.
He added that as of Thursday afternoon, only 14 percent of the county was without power.
"And I know that's better (as of that evening), because on my way over here I got an alert from my security system and my power's back on after 79 and a half hours," Kimbrell said.
As of Saturday afternoon, Georgia Power was reporting just over 600 people in the county were still without power. The good news, Kimbrell said, is while the storm did plenty of damage to the county's infrastructure, it did not result in any deaths in the county.
"We were very fortunate that we did not have any deaths in the county, there were several in the state and a tremendous amount in Florida and the Caribbean," Kimbrell said.
As he added, though, there were several non life threatening injuries.
"I've heard a couple of calls go out for chainsaws on legs, but no county employees, this was civilians," Kimbrell said.
He said it is important for citizens to stay informed in emergency situations. He said anyone who texts "hallcounty" to 888777 will receive text alerts from the county on potential or ongoing emergency situations. He also advised that citizens can follow the county's social media accounts, listing the Twitter accounts @hallcountygov and @hallcountyema as well as the Facebook accounts @hallcountygovernment and @hallcountyema.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2017/9/583683/hall-county-officials-say-irma-recovery-winding-down