Iris Tien

Hurricane Helene is a threat like few others Georgia has faced

By Drew Kann | September 26, 2024

The state of Georgia has been lashed by its share of tropical storms over the years.

In 2018, Hurricane Michael’s ferocious winds tore across a wide swath of southwest Georgia, leaving rural communities facing a yearslong recovery. Then last year, Hurricane Idalia devastated the state’s cotton and pecan crops. Only weeks ago, the deluge that Hurricane Debby dropped on the Georgia coast left entire neighborhoods underwater.

But experts say Hurricane Helene, which is expected to strike Georgia on Thursday night and into Friday morning, poses threats that few Georgians — particularly around metro Atlanta — have faced before.

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Power outages, water problems

Kim Greene, the president and CEO of Georgia Power — the state’s largest electric utility — warned Thursday that Georgians should “prepare for the potential of power outages that could last multiple days due to the size and extensive reach of this storm.”

“Helene is a very large storm, moving into South Georgia with very little time to substantially weaken, and we expect the high winds and heavy rain to cause significant damage in many of our communities,” Greene said in a statement.

Iris Tien, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, said those power outages could cascade and hit other critical services, like water systems.

“We’ve seen in systems that we’ve studied that many times, any outages in the water system aren’t actually due to water system outages themselves, but actually due to power outages at the substations that support them,” Tien said. “Even drinking water, which clearly is a critical resource and asset for everyone, is potentially at risk.”