Hurricane Debby Hits Jeff Davis

“We dodged a bullet other than water.”
That’s what Jeff Davis Emergency Management Agency Director Charles Wasdin had to say about the effects of Hurricane Debby that passed through Southeast Georgia last week dumping heavy rains throughout the region.
Inside the city limits of Hazlehurst, apartments on Cromartie Street and the Jeff Davis Health Department suffered flooding damage, and there were a couple of houses with trees on them, but for the most part damage was limited.
Outside of Hazlehurst, though, flood waters left almost 50 roads closed due to water damage and schools were closed throughout the week because school buses couldn’t deliver children to the schools.
“That was the biggest thing,” Wasdin said. “We had seven calls due to storm damage — last year we had 35 calls.”
“It was definitely a rain event,” he added, “you could see that.”
Wasdin said further along the storm’s path through Georgia, the impact was much more severe.
“In Bryan County, they’re still trying to get people out,” Wasdin said Monday afternoon, a week after the Hurricane hit the area.
Addressing the road damage in Jeff Davis County, Wasdin said, “Some of them, it will be weeks before they get them passable. There are some roads where culverts are gone. They’ll have to order replacements and get them installed.”
Wasdin said instrumentation at the EMA headquarters on Burkett’s Ferry Road measured just over six inches of rain and other parts of the county also measured that amount of rainfall.
On
Towns Bluff Ferry Road, emergency personnel had to make two water rescues where people tried to drive their vehicles through water rushing over the roadway.
“We tell people not to drive their vehicles through water over roads,” Wasdin said.