Saturated ground from recent rains and high winds on Thursday evening led to several downed trees across the area resulting in numerous power, telephone, and internet outages affecting customers overnight Thursday and into Friday morning.
According to HEMC Marketing and Promotions Manager Nicole Dover, “At the peak last night there were just over 500 members out at one point in time.” She states the hardest hit area was in White County in the GA 356 and Skylake areas.
The downed trees also took down telephone and fiber optic lines in the area.
A downed tree and broken utility pole overnight blocked GA 197 in Batesville between the Batesville Fire Station and Providence Baptist Church. Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) had the road closed for several hours while crews cleared the tree from the roadway and Windstream crews replaced the utility pole and restrung telephone and fiber optic lines. GDOT crews detoured traffic onto Chimney Mountain Road during the closure.
The road blockage also caused an accident on GA 197.
According to Habersham County Public Information Officer Rob Moore, at 11:05 p.m. Thursday, a vehicle hit a large downed tree with utility lines near Providence Baptist Church in Batesville.
The vehicle was moved out of the road to Habersham County Emergency Services Station 8 in Batesville. There were no injuries reported, according to Moore.
Due to the high volume of calls for both HEMC and GDOT, the Habersham County Road Department delivered barricades and closed the road on both sides of the fallen trees and utility lines.
GA 197 reopened at approximately 12:15 p.m. Friday afternoon according to Habersham County E-911 but reduced to one lane while telephone crews restrung telephone and fiber optic lines.
