Hurricane Helene, which brought winds exceeding 60 mph to the area Thursday night to Friday morning, Sept. 26-27, left Statesboro, Bulloch County and the surrounding area with myriad problems, such as smashed roofs and walls, power outages affecting tens of thousands of customers, and temporary shortages of fuel.

But despite a few rescues of people initially trapped or left unsafe in damaged homes, car crashes at highway intersections with missing or destroyed traffic signals, and accidents involving emergency generators, no deaths have been attributed to the storm in Bulloch County. More than 25 people lost their lives to it elsewhere in Georgia.

“I know we are bruised and weary, but we will make it through this,” Statesboro Mayor Jonathan McCollar said Sunday. “I want to ask residents to remain patient during this time. Hurricane Helene was an unprecedented storm, but I'm encouraged by the unprecedented work I’ve seen in getting us back on our feet as quickly as possible.”

The damage caused mostly by wind here paled in comparison to the tragedy Helene’s rains brought, as floodwaters, to eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. The Associated Press reported the use of cadaver dogs there Monday as searches continued in neighborhoods “wiped off the map.” The hurricane’s multistate death toll had surpassed 160.

Power company progress

Here, the most widespread impacts were shattered trees and power outages. Georgia Power and the state’s Electric Membership Corporations (EMCs) reported more than 1.1 million customers were without power across Georgia as of late Friday morning, according the Associated Press.

Georgia Power alone acknowledged it had approximately 730,000 customers impacted by the storm as of 10 a.m. Friday. In a briefing Sunday afternoon at the Bulloch County Emergency Operations Center, the company’s Statesboro Area Manager Joel Hanner was blunt in his assessment of Hurricane Helene.

“This has been the worst weather event we've seen in the history of Georgia Power,” he said.

In Bulloch County, 19,153 Georgia Power customers were without electricity Friday after Helene passed, out of a total of 22,553 customers – which include homes and business, thus affecting a larger number of people – in the county of approximately 83,000 residents.

But as the weekend progressed into the week after, bucket trucks and linemen from the power companies and their contractors,  such as Pike Electric and Georgia Right of Way, became frequent sights along the roads. As of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Georgia Power’s online outage map showed 6,347 Bulloch County customers still without power. So by simple math, service that had been restored to 12,806 customer locations, or about 67% of those that initially lost power.

Excelsior Electric Membership Corporation, the power co-op based in Metter and Statesboro, faced in some ways the more formidable challenge. Excelsior EMC President and CEO Greg Proctor reported Sunday that 100% of the EMC’s 25,451 member customers had lost power because of the storm. The co-op’s distribution lines pass through woodland right of ways and along tree-lined country roads to reach farms and rural homes.

Shortly before 4 p.m. Wednesday, Excelsior EMC posted a colorful, large-type “50% members restored” graphic on its Facebook page. So, that means at least 12,726 of the 25,451 customers had power again.

“When you start at 0% of your members having power, this is a very welcome sight. We are working as hard and fast as we can to get to all of your outages!” the accompanying message began. “Thank you for your continued support.”

From Friday morning into the weekend, power outages caused convenience stores with gasoline and diesel pumps to close. Retail corridors obviously were priorities for power restoration, so many fuel and food stores reopened by the beginning of the week, resulting in some long lines at the pumps. But those had largely disappeared by Wednesday.

Generator dangers

The small emergency generators heard humming in many neighborhoods provided relief to some. But these – or the way people used them – have led to some other problems, prompting Bulloch County Fire Chief Ben Tapley to urge residents to be careful in their use of generators.

“Please, remember to never operate a generator inside your house,” Tapley said during Sunday’s briefing. “Try to have them at least 10 feet away from your home. Make sure you cut the generator off when you are refueling.”

One resident suffered severe burns and had to be taken to the burn center in Augusta due to a generator incident and a couple in Portal had a generator inside “explode” and cause a fire that took out most of their house, Tapley said.

The  Statesboro Fire Department has handled some calls for a different problem caused by generator usage, Statesboro Deputy Fire Bobby Duggar said when phoned Wednesday.

“We’ve had a lot of carbon monoxide alarms going off because people are having their generators too close to their house,” he said. “We’ve already run probably a half dozen of those calls, where the carbon monoxide, the CO, was pretty high. Now once we were able to clear it out, it was fine.”

For safety pointers, see the “Generator Tips” posting added to the “Bulloch County Public Safety and EMA” Facebook page Wednesday evening.

In the storm’s immediate aftermath, the Bulloch County Fire Department rescued three people from two heavily damaged homes in the early hours of Friday.

A battalion chief had forced entry into a home on R.L. Lee Road to remove a man who was trapped inside, after which the BCFD called the Red Cross to assist him, Tapley reported that day. Two senior women removed from a badly damaged home on Doe Lane earlier in the night were brought back to Station 7, Brooklet, until winds subsided and then reunited with family members, he said.

The Statesboro Fire Department also handled at least a couple of extrications from homes during the height of the storm, Duggar said. There were probably more, he said, but the SFD’s electronic record keeping system went down in the storm and the department is still catching up from handwritten reports.

Food and water

Many families have had to discard the contents of refrigerators and freezers because of the storm. Statesboro Food Bank and a number of churches across the county have taken part in providing emergency meals and other assistance. Below are some continuing efforts.

● Don Poe with Feed the Boro said the group’s monthly food drop would go on as scheduled at 8 a.m. Saturday at Statesboro High.

People can pick up a food box that will contain 25 pounds of staple food items in bags, cartons and cans. Fresh produce items, which vary with what Second Harvest has on hand, are provided in addition to the box, which is meant to be enough to feed a family of four two meals a day for one week.

● Splash in the Boro is opening twice a day to the public for showers – 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4-8 p.m. Dadrian Crosby with Bulloch County Recreation and Parks said the service would be available “until all power is restored.”

● The City of Statesboro Public Utility facility at 36 Hill St. is open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday for anyone to come get drinking water.

Community prayer service

First Baptist Church Statesboro will host a community prayer service at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 6.

“Let's come together as a community to pray for those affected by the recent disasters and show our support for our local leaders and first responders,” states the notice on First Baptist’s website.

This story adapts information from a Sept. 29 story by editor Jim Healy and other weekend reports still available at www.statesboroherald.com.