A Year After Hurricane Helene — In Pictures

SEE PHOTOS AT THE END OF ARTICLE

By TOMMY PURSER
Editor-Publisher
One thing local Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Charles Wasdin never wants to see again is a hurricane called “Helena.”
“They need to retire that name,” Wasdin said this week when he sat down to share his thoughts on the 1-year anniversary of the most destructive storm to ever bring its fury to Jeff Davis County.
“We’ve never seen anything like that around here,” he continued. “I think we were prepared for a storm but we weren’t prepared for what we had. We’d never seen that kind of damage in Jeff Davis County.”
The weeks and months after the storm saw the EMA all but overwhelmed by the task of restoring the county to some sense of normalcy. But there were silver linings beneath the cloak of devastation that covered the county.
The first positive aftermath was recognizing the storm as a learning experience to help the EMA forces to better prepare for future such storms.
“It was a learning experience for us. I think it was a learning experience for everyone,” Wasdin said. “People are now more aware. They’re listing to the Weather Channel, listening to weather alerts, and other alerts that come out.”
Wasdin and the local EMA are engaged in preparing for the future and one thing they are currently working on is IPAWS — Integrated Public Alert and Warning System — with the help of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Southern Company.
With IPAWS, the EMA can plot points on a computer screen map where severe weather is expected, creating a polygon shaped figure. Using IPAWS, the EMA can send alerts to every cell phone located within the polygon figure on the map, giving timely, personal alerts to every cell phone user in the area.
It isn’t in operation yet but Wasdin hopes to have the system up and operating soon.
Today, Wasdin feels cautious about the possibility of devastating weather.
“I think everybody in the county is cautious, too,” he said. “Because we’ve never had anything like (Helene) before. Now, we all have that in the back of our minds.”
When the EMA sent out pre-storm warnings last September, much of the concern was about people living in substandard housing.
“We told people that if they are in substandard housing, it was time to get out,” Wasdin said of the pre-storm warnings. “But a lot of people said ‘No. I’m gonna stay’ but those people are more cautious today.”
Structures in the county were not affected so much by the wind itself from Helene, what did most of the damage were the trees that fell because of the wind.
“The most damaging part of the storm was the trees that fell,” Wasdin said. “Probably 85% of the structures in the county were affected in some way by the storm, mostly from falling trees. There weren’t many people in this county that didn’t make an insurance claim after Helene. Almost everyone had some type of vehicle damage, either minor or bad. The county (government) still has vehicles that were damaged in the storm and still haven’t received settlements. My truck is still damaged.”
Today, Wasdin is concerned about the lack of sufficient affordable housing in Jeff Davis County.
“We need places like Greenbriar (a subsidized apartment complex in Hazlehurst) where people who can’t afford a home can live … places for the elderly. We just don’t have enough affordable housing and the hurricane destroyed some of the affordable homes we did have.”
Affordable housing is a topic that is mentioned at almost every meeting held with FEMA representatives.
“It keeps me up at night,” Wasdin said. “We have too many people here who can’t afford to live in (more expensive houses). We need affordable housing but it takes investors to make it happen.”
While Wasdin is left with haunted memories of Helene, there was a positive side to dealing with the destruction.
“From that morning when everyone got outside and saw the damage, everybody rolled up their sleeves and went to work,” Wasdin said. “Everybody was helping everybody. There were tractors everywhere moving trees. Everyone came together to make it happen. I was proud of our people. Proud of what they did and how much we were able to accomplish.”
And Wasdin remains thankful for the help that came from outside the county as well.
“We were overwhelmed,” he said. “Law enforcement was overwhelmed. The fire department was overwhelmed …. Everything we had in the county was overwhelmed. But we had people from all over come to help us. I don’t know what we would have done without that help.”
Another Helene could come this way again, perhaps as soon as during the current hurricane season. But people here will be better prepared now than they were 12 months ago. And so will Wasdin’s EMA.