Hammond Hills homes destroyed by Hurricane Helene, resident shares story

NORTH AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – The Hammond Hills neighborhood in North Augusta was one of many that got pummeled by Hurricane Helene.

Many residents there were forced to move out or demolish their homes due to the damages.

Julian Jenkins is one of them. He owned this home on Hammond Drive for less than six months before the storm destroyed it beyond repair.

“We honestly thought we’d just be able to ride through it The house is 50-years-old and it hadn’t gone anywhere since, so I thought you know it’d just be another thunderstorm,” he said.

Jenkins and his fiancé quickly realized that wasn’t the case.

“I woke up to the transformer here blowing up and the room was glowing like a deep ocean blue,” he said. “We would run to one side of the house and we’d hear a loud thump, and we’d run to the other side and hear a loud thump,”

When a tree crashed through the living room, they ran out to the car.

“And so I figured if the tree falls through the roof, the carport ceiling, the roof rack, and then the car itself, it was just our time,” Jenkins said.

But, a decision to make a run for the neighbor’s house might’ve saved their lives. They waited out the storm there and have been staying at a nearby hotel ever since.

Thursday, an Atlanta-based crew cleared debris and took down the remaining trees on the property.

“Compare this storm to Katrina and it’s been nineteen years ago, it’s just like Katrina but it’s a lot smaller, but it’s still widespread,” said Philander Rose, the owner of R3 Tree LLC. “We’ve been here twelve days and we’ve just been working, we’ve worked probably at least twenty-five houses.”

As for the future of Jenkins’s house…

“Unfortunately I think it’s going to be demolished and we’ll rebuild a new one in the next eighteen months,” Jenkins said. “I was kind of like a deer in the headlights the night of, I was just in shock. And the next morning it was kind of a little bit emotional, but we were just glad nobody was hurt.”

The R3 Tree crew said they will continue to work in North Augusta until there isn’t a need for them anymore.

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