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The cleanup begins; 500 still without power
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Branches and debris of varying sizes were scattered around J.F. Gregory Park Saturday morning. - photo by Ted O'Neil

Although Tropical Storm Hermine has moved up the east coast and the forecast for the rest of the Labor Day weekend is sunny and warm, some residents remain without power and many people have debris and other damage to clean up.

As of 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Georgia Power’s outage map showed about 500 people in Richmond Hill still without power spread across several small pockets. Some people in the vicinity of Richmond Hill High School have been without power for more than 24 hours. Georgia Power said it had more than 33,000 customers statewide still without power as of Saturday morning.

Georgia Power’s outage map can be found at: http://outagemap.georgiapower.com/external/default.html.

Georgia Electric Cooperative’s outage map as of 8:30 a.m. was showing one customer in Bryan County without power.

Mark Bolton, vice president for marketing, communications and economic development for Georgia Electric, said the company had power restored to all customers by 4 a.m. Friday after the initial rain and winds from Hermine started to cause problems, but high winds throughout the day Friday continued to knock down trees and limbs. Some 2,000 of their customers were without power at various times on Friday.

Bolton said crews from Southern Rivers Energy in Barnsville and Tri-County EMC in Gray arrived Friday afternoon to assist.

Coastal Electric’s outage map can be found at: http://oms.coastalemc.com/OMSWebMap/OMSWebMap.htm?clientKey=undefined.

Bryan County Emergency Services closed its operations center mid-afternoon Friday once the heavy winds began to dissipate. Chief Freddy Howell said a large power outage in north Bryan Friday night came about after a vehicle hit a power pole. The driver had to be extricated from the vehicle and was taken by ambulance to Memorial Hospital. Howell said the weather prevented the use of a helicopter to transport the driver.

Government offices and many businesses were closed Friday in anticipation of the storm. Bryan County Schools were also closed and the Richmond Hill and Bryan County high school football games were cancelled. Neither game will be made up as they were not against region opponents.

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