Saturday morning storm knocks down trees, power lines in White County

CLEVELAND, Ga. — A thunderstorm that swept through White County Saturday morning damaged a church building, knocked down trees and power lines, left roadways blocked and about 1,100 Habersham Electric Membership Corporation members without power.

The company’s crews worked throughout the weekend to restore power. According to Habersham EMC’s website, nine power poles were broken — several along a stretch of Duncan Bridge Road. Each pole will take about eight hours to replace.

Transmission lines that deliver electricity to substations were also damaged and lost power.

HEMC and assisting crews are working to repair damage to lines that carry electricity from the substations to members. Georgia Transmission Corporation, which operates the transmission lines, has restored service to the substations. However, due to ongoing work to repair broken transmission poles, some members were without power until late Saturday evening.

There was also a report of structural damage to the Chattahoochee Baptist Church where White County EMA Director David Murphy had set up a command post. There was another report of damage to the church van.

HEMC reminds members to avoid downed lines and treat all as if energized and to report outages and hazards by calling (706)754-2114, (706)865-4362 or (800)640-6812. Social media is not monitored 24/7.

 

Fetch Your News is a hyper local news outlet that covers Dawson, Lumpkin, White, Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens, Union, Towns and Murray counties as well as Cherokee County in N.C. FYN attracts 300,000+ page views per month, 3.5 million impressions per month and approximately 15,000 viewers per week on FYNTV.com and up to 60,000 Facebook page reach. If you would like to follow up-to-date local events in any of those counties, please visit us at FetchYourNews.com