Storms cause extensive damage in north Georgia

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Strong storms whipped through north Georgia Thursday night causing extensive damage.

One of those areas was near Dunwoody Country Club.

“I’ve been here 14 years, and this is the first time a big tree like that has gone down across the road,” Cote said.

The Georgia Power map was peppered with numerous outages on Friday.

“As of right now, our crews have restored power to about 225,000 customers, and over the next couple of hours, our crews are working as quickly as possible to safely restore power to about those 38,000 customers who are out right now,” Georgia Power Spokesperson Amanda Arnold said.

READ: Forsyth County residents urged to limit water use to “emergencies only” as power outages continue

One of those areas without power was Dunwoody Club Drive and Jett Ferry Road in DeKalb County. A large pine tree fell in the storm and snapped a power pole in half. Former Dunwoody Mayor Denis Shortal was grateful to see Georgia Power crews on the scene.

“Let me tell you. Just overall, Georgia Power does a hell of a job. Let’s just face it. This storm wasn’t just a little one coming through, this was a big one,” Shortal said.

Georgia Power crews will be working into the evening hours and hope to have all outages restored by Saturday so that people living in Dunwoody and elsewhere can get back into the swing of things.

“We’re fine, you know you just work through it. All the neighbors were out last night so I hadn’t seen a lot of them in a long time, so it was great,” Cote said.

Georgia Power is part of a mutual assistance program, and they can pull in other resources when needed but they told Atlanta News First they are confident that their crews can get this done internally.

Copyright 2023 WANF. All rights reserved.