At Monday’s city commission meeting, City Manager Charlie Davis updated commissioners on the clean-up efforts around the city and county in the wake of Hurricane Helene. The meeting was the first gathering of the city commission since Helene wreaked havoc on the community.
Davis stated that the city rebuilt the entire electric system in about a week. He added that he’s not sure exactly how much everything will cost. “This is going to be very expensive. We’ve been signing bills and authorizations and we have no idea what we’ve committed. We had to do it and maybe by the next commission meeting we’ll have some totals,” said Davis.
He stated that the debris clean-up for the city and county would probably total $15-20 million. He said that the electric system work for all the electricity providers would be another $5-10 million. The airport fire station suffered an estimated $1 million in damages. The Boys and Girls Club building also sustained a significant amount of damage. FEMA will help with these payments. However, said Davis, FEMA payments run about 24-36 months behind. So the city will have to pay everything up front then get reimbursed from FEMA after the fact.
Regarding the shelter at Central Square, Davis said that about 90 people were still there early in the week. The Central Square shelter is also the largest shelter still open in Georgia and he expects it to remain open for another 10-14 days.
Most of the debris removal will be completed in an estimated 90 days, Davis said. However, there will be another 10-15 percent of the debris that could take another 90 days to get cleaned up. He said crews are hauling about 23,000 cubic yards of debris each day. There is an estimated total of two million cubic yards of debris that will need to be taken care of. Grinding the debris that has been picked up already will begin next week.
About a week after the storm hit, county EMA director Steve Carver said that the total bill for the recovery would cost $25 million. The federal and state governments would take care of 90 percent of the total cost. The county and municipalities, however, would be responsible for 10 percent.
The commission took action on the following items:
- Re-appointed Don Brooks, Byron Gillespie, and Wayne McKinnon to the airport commission;
- Changed the date for the first November meeting to November 12 due to Veterans Day falling on the second Monday of the month;
- Accepted two checks, one for $12,500 from the Community Foundation for Veterans Park improvements and another for an $877,225 Community Development Block Grant for housing rehabilitation in the Pine Street area;
- And approved the Airport Capital Improvement Plan for the next five years, which includes a request for funding for a corporate access road, T-hangar taxiway improvements, and a historical hangar.
The next city commission meeting takes place on October 28 at 6 p.m.