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Wednesday’s forecasts for Hurricane Helene painted a gloomy picture for the Chattahoochee Valley region. Some forecasts had a Category 4 hurricane making landfall near Apalachicola, Florida and paralleling the Chattahoochee River in eastern Georgia with the eye of the storm passing directly over Columbus, Hamilton and Pine Mountain. That was uncomfortably close to the Greater Valley Area, and many people went out to stock up on emergency supplies, anticipating power outages.

Fortunately for those of this region, the storm took a more easterly path. Given the dire forecasts on Wednesday, the actual events of Thursday and early Friday morning were not bad at all for Chambers, Troup and Harris counties.

Mayor Steve Tramell told The Valley Times-News that a couple of trees came down in West Point, one of which caused a temporary power outage. The heavy rain that did fall caused some street flooding in Lanett and Valley. The portion of North Lanier Avenue that runs in front of Langley Motor Company was closed for a short period until the excess water could drain away. The east entrance to Fob James Drive was temporarily closed as Moore’s Creek got out of its banks and washed across the road for a short time.

Mayor Tramell, Jamie Heard in Lanett and Leonard Riley in Valley all expressed thankfulness that the storm wasn’t any worse than it was for the local area.

Kathy Hornsby, deputy director of the Chambers County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), reported this morning that approximate;y 60 people in the Abanda community in northwest Chambers County lost power last night. She said that river gauges were within normal pools. There’s lots and lots of water in the Chattahoochee River basin that’s headed this way. Fortunately, West Point Lake is down considerably due to some routine work that’s taking place at West Point Dam. There’s plenty of storage capacity behind the dam in case it’s needed.

That was not the case in the spring of 2003, when a very unusual weather event produced anywhere from 12 to 16 inches of rain throughout the river basin north of West Point. West Point Lake was at its normal spring/summer pool level of 635 feet above sea level. There just wasn’t enough storage capacity to keep downtown West Point from flooding.

Thus far, that’s the only time there’s been such a flood since the dam went into service in 1975. Before that, West Point had experienced an average of one flood per year every year since 1900. That was 75 floods in 75 years. West Point Dam has cut that to just one flood in almost 50 years. Not bad for a $105 million federal project. Try building a new dam for that much money today.

Also consider the fact that the initial investment has gotten way more than that back in the form of power sales.

The eastern half of Georgia bore the brunt of Helene. The storm entered Georgia as a Category 2 hurricane early Friday morning, bringing wind gusts as high as 100 miles an hour and leaving streets and waterways flooded, over one million people without power and 11 people dead, including a first responder.

“One of our finest has lost his life trying to save others,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said at a Friday morning press conference.

Kemp said the path from Valdosta to Augusta took “a very hard hit.” An estimated 115 structures in Valdosta were heavily damaged and multiple people were trapped inside them.

According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, there were approximately 150 road closures and at least two Interstate closures – I-16 in Laurens County and I-20 near Augusta.

The metro Atlanta area was under a flash flood emergency Friday morning. At a Friday morning press conference, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said that there had been no deaths or serious injuries in the city due to the storm but that flash flooding in low-lying areas around Atlanta had been a problem for some time. Early Friday morning, fire crews rescued several Atlanta residents from flooding apartments in Buckhead around 4 a.m. A family with a baby and two dogs were rescued from a flooding vehicle.

The Chattahoochee River near Atlanta is nearly 30 feet high in some areas in the wake of Helene. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey both predicted for the river water to continue rising through Friday before easing early on Saturday.