Salvation Army Capt. Paul Ryerson, the organization’s information commander in Valdosta during a Facebook video of latest relief efforts.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
OCT. 4, 2024 | Talking to people around the South this week after Hurricane Helene roared through, there was so much extensive damage throughout eastern Georgia, western South and North Carolina, and into Tennessee and Virginia. It may take months to determine the number of deaths, the extent of the destruction, and the dollar figure of whacks to the economy.
Now a week after Helene’s path of destruction, many areas across the south are still without electrical power. Foods, gasoline and other vital items are in short supply.
Particularly upstate Georgia, South and North Carolina and Tennessee will need road repairs for months. Throughout the area hit by Helene, trees are downed everywhere, and normal activities have not returned.
One of the hardest hit areas, around Valdosta, has a Salvation Army disaster team led by Capt. Kent Rynerson of Gwinnett County Salvation Army in Lawrenceville. As of Thursday morning, there were 8,000 households still without power there. Originally 25,000 were without power in the area.
This Salvation Army team arrived by noon Saturday and fed their first meal that night. He has 27 volunteers working, and so far, they have fed 19,000 meals as of Wednesday night to people working to clean up the area. Captain Rynerson and his team were housed in a campground bunkhouse south of the city. They had no power for 48 hours.
Besides relief operations in Valdosta, the Salvation Army has disaster teams in Augusta, Savannah and Alma. People wanting to help provide assistance may go to HelpSalvationArmy.org, Rynerson says, “…where 100 percent of the funds go to relief, for there is no administration fee.”
The physical extent of the damage and its wide swath of Helene is staggering. As one guy told us: “Who would think of a hurricane roaring into the Appalachian mountains?”
Some of the places we contacted in Georgia:
Dublin: The front page of the Courier-Herald had a thick black headline of only one word: “Hell….ene.” The Saturday edition told of two dead from trees falling on them, one at a home, another when a woman was riding with her husband in a semi-truck pulling a trailer. The newspaper showed photos and told stories of trees down in Dublin and neighboring counties, with three rural counties reporting at least 97 percent without power.
Jesup: Trees down, power out, roads blocked. The newspaper here had part of its roof damaged, but continued to print for other newspapers. Plastic has been distributed throughout the building to cover computers in case of rain.
Fitzgerald: Extensive damage throughout the area. Its newspaper, the Herald-Leader, was to be distributed a day late, since it had no wi-fi to connect to its servers, and only one section was to be printed.
Darien: Its newspaper, Darien News, main story said: ‘It was an hellacious stormy night when strong tropical force winds of 58 to 73 mph, and gusts reported at 97 mph, early Friday morning, Sept.27, from Hurricane Helene when she hit McIntosh County. ….Though McIntosh County was hit hard, it was not as affected….as some places like Soperton, which looked as though a tornado had hit, with windows blown out and a huge amount of power lines downed. People in the Augusta area on Saturday were reported to be waiting in line for more than four hours to get gas at some filling stations. Places were reported to look like a war zone.”
Indeed, the eastern half of the state was a war zone. And it is incredible that not more were dead from this killer storm.
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