Helene disrupts power lines, fells numerous trees in Athens and nearby counties

A northern section of the Athens Perimeter was closed to traffic early Friday due to a damaged major power line, but the traffic was restored by the afternoon after officials were able to correct the problem.

The closed section on the bypass was between Tallassee Road and Atlanta Highway, Athens-Clarke County Fire Chief Nate Moss said.

That damage was the major problem associated with the Helene tropical storm as it moved through Athens early Friday morning.

There have been some other smaller road closures in the county, he said. Police, fire and public works have responded to reports of fallen trees and other traffic hazards, according to Moss.

“We’re looking at about 6,100 customers without power throughout the county through the various power companies,” he said early Friday. Many of those customers have had power restored, according to news released from power companies.

A major location for power outages were in the southeastern part of the county in the Gaines School Road and Cedar Shoals Road area, according to Moss.

Helene Impact: Hurricane Helene Updates: Storm makes landfall and tracks into Georgia

Oconee County fared well during the night, according to Oconee County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jeremy Wasdin.

By noon Friday power crews were repairing utility lines that were damaged by two trees that fell toward U.S. Highway 441 in the Farmington community, he said.

The felled trees didn't happen until around 8 a.m. when the backside of the storm came through, he said.

"We did very well last night in terms of not taking a lot of calls. There were some trees down and powerlines, but it was less than we anticipated," Wasdin said, adding it was later in daylight hours when high winds caused a majority of the calls. Before Thursday evening, all deputies in the office were put on call status in the event something happened that required more manpower.

Madison County had widespread reports of downed trees and power lines.

"We had 209 response calls for our first responders since 4:30 this morning and the vast majority were for downed trees and power lines," Madison County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jeff Vaughn said about 2 p.m. Friday.

A section of Georgia Highway 172 near Valley Road outside Colbert was still shut down due to a major power line down, Vaughn said. Also, Rogers Mill Road northwest of Danielsville is closed for the same reason, he said.

There are about 10 small county roads that are impassible due to fallen trees that were too large for their saws, so these problems await the arrival of the county road department to move, according to Vaughn.

"I've been cutting trees since 4:30 this morning and I feel it," he commented.

Georgia Power also reported early in the predawn hours of a outage in the Hawthorne Avenue area that impacted about 250 customers along with another in the Winterville area, including parts of Oglethorpe County, affecting about 660 customers.

As Helene came through Athens it came with heavy rain and fluctuating wind speeds.

In Oglethorpe County, the largest outage was reported by Georgia Power in an area running from Maxeys south to the Union Point area of Greene County.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Helene disrupts power lines, fells numerous trees in Athens and nearby counties