Downed Trees Was Main Problem With Weekend Rain, Wind

Stephens County and Toccoa city officials said that downed trees were the major problem this past weekend with heavy rain that moved through the area.

According to County Administrator Phyllis Ayers, the county seemed to fare pretty well this past weekend, especially when compared to neighboring counties.

Ayers said she feels the county was prepared before the rain and wind hit.

“I had the road crews split up into zones and they spent all day Friday cleaning out our pipes, looking at our most troubled areas, graveling any area that needed it,” said Ayers. “Trees that we knew were probably going to be an issue, they went ahead and took those down. We probably had some crews working until about 8 o’clock Friday evening.”

Ayers said that county crews were then on-call all weekend long to deal with downed trees and other issues.

She added that while downed trees were the biggest issue, there was one near flooding situation she was aware of.

“I think we had one home that had an almost flooding situation, but the road crew and a volunteer fire station were able to blow a pipe out at the top of Dick’s Hill and get the water flowing.”

Also, Ayers said there was a church in the Panther Creek area where people became stuck inside Sunday when a Georgia Power pole fell.

She said those people were gotten out safely and there were no reported injuries.

Ayers said she feels another thing that helped the county this past weekend was work done weeks and months before the past few days.

“Not only Friday morning, we have been working all summer to replace some major pipes in the county and do some pretty heavy maintenance road work and I think that paid off for us,” said Ayers.

Meanwhile, Toccoa officials said they had about five trees go down.

Both the city and county said crews were out Monday continuing to clean up and move out trees that had fallen over the weekend.