Columbia County commissioners ratifying storm damage contracts, giving updates

COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga. (WJBF) – Columbia County commissioners provided updates on Hurricane Helene recovery at their meeting Tuesday night.

Commissioners voted to ratify the local state of emergency after Hurricane Helene barreled through the area almost three weeks ago.

“Last time I checked, over two-hundred houses in Columbia County were destroyed,” said Chairman Doug Duncan. “Were not damaged, destroyed. So a lot of life changing moments for people.”

Power has now been restored to almost all of the county.

“The roads were all covered with debris and impassable, but at this point, some of the worst roads have been cleared to the point where we can at least get one lane through, but most are two lane passes,” Duncan said. “But we’ve recovered from power, from roads and the water system actually never went down.”

The board also ratified two contracts: one for debris removal…

“We have fifty-two trucks running and I believe they’re averaging about seven pick-ups and dumps a day per truck, but at this rate it’s just going to take up to sixty to seventy days to clear the first pass,” Duncan said. “We’ll make two passes, but the first pass is gonna take a while because there’s just so much debris. The county will pay the bill but FEMA will reimburse us for the work.”

And the other is for repairing the trashed Savannah Rapids Pavilion.

“It was trashed, yes,” Duncan said. “It had trees, trees punctured the roof, there was water damage, so is it a total loss? We don’t think so, but it’s gonna be closed for a long time. It’s gotta be almost totally rebuilt. But we’re gonna us the structure in place to rebuild it.”

Duncan says if the Savannah Rapids Pavilion was your usual voting precinct, you’ll now be voting at Stevens Creek Church.

The county has been posting updates regularly on its social media pages – but you can also call 311 to ask specific questions.

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