Helene live updates from Augusta: Charities teaming up to help Augustans in need

Recovery efforts continue into their second week after Hurricane Helene devastated the Augusta area on Sept. 27.

Though thousands remain without power heading into this week, Georgia Power said that by Saturday, Oct. 5 80% of its Augusta customers had their power restored.

The Category 4 storm made landfall Sept. 26 along Florida’s Big Bend coast. The Augusta area saw isolated tornadoes and hurricane-force wind gusts exceeding 80 mph, downing trees and powerlines.

Below is the latest information on Hurricane Helene recovery efforts in Augusta and east Georgia. The Augusta Chronicle staff will update regularly.

Aiken County Public School System announced on Saturday that Paul Knox Middle in North Augusta and Aiken High School in Aiken will serve as shelters. But this was later updated to only Paul Knox serving as a shelter. Those sheltering at Paul Knox should enter at Wells Road and Pisgah Avenue.

Aiken County schools continue to be closed as they are currently on fall break through Oct. 11.

Many residents in communities surrounding Augusta remain without power as the area heads into its second week of recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene.

“It’s going to be a multiple-week-long process,” Wayne Gossage Jr., president of Jefferson Energy Cooperative, last week said of efforts to restore power in more rural areas. “I was here during the ice storm of 2014 and I never thought we’d see anything close to that, but this is much worse for multiple reasons. The transmission that’s out, the damage to our distribution system is going to take time to repair. The ice storm was isolated more or less, but this is all over.” 

Here’s a look of remaining power outages in some of the communities outside Augusta as reported by Dataminr on Sunday morning. The data is presented by electric utility, county affected and the number of remaining outages.

Jefferson Energy

• Mcduffie County, GA: 3,153
• Jefferson County, GA: 3,105
• Columbia County, GA: 2,691
• Richmond County, GA: 1,795
• Burke County, GA: 1,116
• Warren County, GA: 826
• Glascock County, GA: 465
• Emanuel County, GA: 435
• Johnson County, GA: 229
• Washington County, GA: 89

Aiken Electric

• Aiken County, SC: 6,033
• Edgefield County, SC: 4,126
• McCormick County, SC: 535
• Saluda County, SC: 146
• Barnwell County, SC: 40

Dominion Energy

• Aiken County, SC: 8,305
• Edgefield County, SC: 1,418
• Saluda County, SC: 1,008
• Mccormick County, SC: 719
• Richland County, SC: 91
• Gloucester County, VA: 16
• Abbeville County, SC: 11
• Fairfax County, VA: 9
• Petersburg County, VA: 8
• Lexington County, SC: 8

United Way of the Central Savannah River Area, its 211 Helpline and the crowdsourced internet charity site GoFundMe.org are collectively raising funds for families harmed by damage from Hurricane Helene.The fund will offer unrestricted cash grants of $200 to help people pay for food, water, clothing, diapers and other critical supplies. “Additional grants will become available as new funds are raised through this impactful partnership,” according to Madison Jones, a communications manager with GoFundMe.United Way CSRA’s 2-1-1 is helping to identify grantees, and GoFundMe.org will issue the grants. GoFundMe has made an initial $50,000 contribution to begin immediately helping 250 people in Augusta.Tax-deductible donations also will be granted to support those in need.