Thousands of households lost power, and trees were down all over the city, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
Hurricane Helene wound up skirting to the east of Athens, moving through Augusta into South Carolina, rather than coming straight through metro Atlanta, limiting the severity of the damage locally.
“Clarke County was really fortunate,” Mayor Kelly Girtz said.
About 1 million customers lost power statewide, but that figure was only about 3,500 in Athens as of Friday afternoon of Friday. About 30 streets were closed—most significantly part of the Loop between Atlanta Highway and Tallassee Road early Friday morning—due to fallen trees or downed power lines. Athens-Clarke County has a list of blocked roads.
Some danger remains, however—the North and Middle Oconee rivers could still begin to surge as rain slowly makes its way into river basins.
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