Dave Williams, Capitol Beat

ATLANTA – It took the Georgia Department of Transportation seven months to finish clearing the massive amounts of debris Hurricane Helene left across a wide swath of the state, an engineer with the agency said Wednesday.

The DOT used 2,134 employees in the response to the storm – more than half of the agency’s staff – to haul nearly 4.8 million cubic yards of debris from 35 sites, Assistant State Maintenance Engineer Emily Fish told members of the State Transportation Board. The work was completed in April, she said.

Helene rampaged through South Georgia and north through the Augusta area in late September, killing 34 Georgians and causing heavy rainfall and widespread flooding as well as extensive power outages.

The General Assembly approved $862 million in disaster relief for victims of the storm.

Fish said the DOT has sent five applications for reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The feds are expected to fully reimbursement the state for the first 120 days of recovery efforts and cover 75% of the costs after that, she said. The Federal Highway Administration also kicked in $9.1 million separately to help repair damaged roads, she said.

Fish said the state is having to provide a huge amount of documentation with the various reimbursement applications.

“It becomes incredibly tedious, but we have to do this to get that funding back,” she said.

Fish said lessons learned from the massive recovery include a need to improve communications among the various repair crews working throughout the disaster area. Cellphone service was out in some areas for up to five days following the storm, she said.

Fish said the DOT has bought 1,200 new radios and satellite phones that will help with communication the next time a hurricane or other weather emergency strikes.

The 2025 hurricane season outlook from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is calling for a 60% chance of an above-average amount of activity.

“I think we’re better prepared than ever,” Fish said. “But I hope we won’t have to respond.”