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Weather officials upgraded Tropical Storm Helene to a Hurricane Wednesday, September 25, 2024. There are hurricane watches, tropical storm watches and flood watches in effect across nearly all of Georgia until Friday, September 27.

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On a scale of 1-10, Columbus emergency management Director Chance Corbett was bracing for Hurricane Helene to hit the area as an 8-10 storm when Thursday night became Friday morning.

City officials prepared to respond to the predicted potential of catastrophic damage from Hurricane Helene. After all, it had strengthened to a Category 4 storm as it approached the Big Bend in Florida, and weather forecasters estimated Columbus would be in its path.

But around 6 a.m., when the storm had departed the local area after taking a more easterly direction through Georgia, Corbett breathed a sigh of relief. He said the effects of Hurricane Helene on Columbus amounted to a 1 on that scale of 1-10.

“We’ve had worse severe thunderstorms,” he told the Ledger-Enquirer.

Corbett said he received no reports of injuries or significant damage from the storm overnight in Columbus.

Parts of three city roads were closed overnight, Corbett said:

Trees fell along four more roads, but closures weren’t required, Corbett said: Lindsay Drive, Chesley Drive, Berkley Avenue and College Drive.

As of 7 a.m., the Georgia Power outage map showed 320 customers out of 89,481 without power from 15 outages. But in the far northeast part of Muscogee County, around Williams Road, 2,479 out of 2,705 Diverse Power customers were without power.

Nonetheless, Corbett was grateful for the relatively benign circumstances.

“We were very nervous that Columbus was going to be inundated with flooding, inundated with trees down, road closures, power outages,” he said. “We do have some of that, but, honestly, it was a breath of fresh air that we avoided any major damage.

“People can get up and go to work this morning. It’s amazing. We thought we were going to be out clearing streets most of the day, and we’ve avoided that. It’s a very big relief for us.”

By midday, Corbett texted the following update to the Ledger-Enquirer:

Cooper Creek Park is closed due to flooding, Corbett said.

Two fallen power poles were seen in the park as well.

Alta Vista Drive resident LaTasha Cloud was relieved Friday morning that Hurricane Helene didn’t cause more grief in Columbus.

Cloud expressed frustration that her power still hadn’t been restored when the Ledger-Enquirer interview her around 9:45 a.m. Friday after it went out around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, but she still was grateful the situation wasn’t worse.

The length of the power outage caused the food she had in the refrigerator to spoil, Cloud said. Her children, including one recovering from surgery, spent the night at their grandmother’s home to be safer and more comfortable. And the stretch of Forrest Road from Sheffield Drive to Martha’s Loop still was blocked off while a crew worked to restore the power after a pine tree fell and a power pole was snapped in half.

But, after she noted her friends in South Carolina lost their house when the roof caved in from the hurricane, Cloud had a brighter perspective.

“Beyond grateful,” she said. “I won’t complain. I just want my power back on.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2024, 7:22 AM.

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

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Ledger-Enquirer staff writer Mark Rice covers education and other issues related to youth. He also writes feature stories about any compelling topic. He has been reporting in Columbus and the Chattahoochee Valley for more than a quarter-century. He welcomes your local news tips and questions.

Columbus went under a local emergency declaration Thursday and faced hurricane warnings from national forecasters, leaving local officials worried the city would see significant damage from Hurricane Helene.

But come sunrise Friday, the city had dodged a bullet and storm damage was minimal.

That’s because a storm in the Mississippi Valley pushed the hurricane farther east at the last minute, according to AccuWeather meteorologists.

“It interacted with the additional storm in the Mississippi Valley and the wind field expanded,” AccuWeather Chief Meterologist John Porter said at a media briefing Friday morning. “It became a hybrid system that slingshot into the southeastern United States. It rapidly moved inland.”

Valdosta and central Georgia received the brunt that the Chattahoochee Valley was supposed to get.

Just outside of Valdosta, near Quitman, Helene was a Category 2 hurricane with max wind gusts reaching 125 mph at 1 a.m. Friday morning, according to AccuWeather.

One hour later outside of Tifton, teetering along I-75, Helene was still a Category 1 hurricane bringing 115 mph gusts.

Those who wound up in the storm’s worst path were heavily affected. A Georgia Power outage report showed 32,000 people were without power as of 9 a.m. Friday morning in Lowndes County, which was nearly 100% of the county’s power customers.

The storm pivoted into central Georgia Thursday night and into the early morning Friday with gusts reaching 90 mph at 5 a.m., when the storm was 60 miles east of Macon. The hurricane reduced to a tropical storm at 7 a.m. near Athens, forecasters said.

“As the storm gained further wind intensity, it tracked farther east,” Porter said.

It is unusual for the storm to come this far inland, he said.

“It was a broad storm that will likely cost tens of billions of dollars,” Porter said.

Porter said 1 million people in Georgia were without power Friday morning. Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have 3 million people without power combined.

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

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Kala Hunter is a reporter covering climate change and environmental news in Columbus and throughout the state of Georgia. She has her master’s of science in journalism from Northwestern, Medill School of Journalism. She has her bachelor’s in environmental studies from Fort Lewis College in Colorado. She’s worked in green infrastructure in California and Nevada. Her work appears in the Bulletin of Atomic Science, Chicago Health Magazine, and Illinois Latino News Network.

Editor’s note: This story is part of our ongoing Hurricane Helene coverage, a fast-moving developing story. For the latest information, please visit ledger-enquirer.com.

Forecasters have warned that Hurricane Helene’s will have an impact in Columbus that rivals previous historic storms such as Hurricane Michael, and may even outdo the magnitude of any prior hurricane that has reached this area.

On Oct. 4, 1995, Hurricane Opal brought 70 mph winds and knocked down 300-plus trees throughout Columbus and Fort Moore, according to the Ledger’s archive. Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Michael in 2018 are the other notable hurricanes that brought devastating damage to the region.

In a statement Thursday morning, the National Weather Service said Hurricane Helene will “exceed or rival the wind and rain of Opal, Irma, and Michael.”

Marlow of the National Weather Service sent this email to the Ledger-Enquirer:

“First and foremost: there isn’t a single storm that fits the anticipated magnitude of possible wind and rain hazards for Columbus from Helene. Its forward speed and the broadness of its wind field are rather anomalous, on top of the addition of the predecessor rain event that occurred yesterday.

If a more westward track is realized, measured winds in Columbus could exceed those in Irma, Michael — both of which had very different tracks than Helene.”

Hurricane Helene was spinning toward the Big Bend in Florida at time of publication, expected to make landfall as a Category 4 hurricane at 10 p.m. Thursday.

Still just a Category 2 Thursday morning, hurricane expert Alex DaSilva believes this storms swath will be larger than Hurricane Ian or Hurricane Michael, which was a Category 5.

“Helene is expected to rapidly grow into a very large and powerful hurricane,” he said. “It is possible that Helene could rapidly intensify into a Category 4 hurricane and maintain that strength at landfall with maximum sustained winds of 131 to 155 miles per hour.”

The warm Gulf sea surface temperatures and a dip in the jetstream have DaSilva concerned for how far inland the hurricane-like impacts will be.

Temperatures are about 4 degrees above normal, according to climate scientist Daniel Gilford.

“These winds will be extending a lot further north than a typical tropical system,” he said during a AccuWeather press brief briefing Thursday morning. “(At) 8 p.m. tonight (Columbus) could start to experience wind gusts. We’re concerned about down trees, and power lines, and rain already saturated the soil. “

A hurricane-speed wind gust is at least 73 mph, which Columbus could experience overnight and into the early morning Friday.

Yesterday Columbus received between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain, according to National Weather Service forecaster Lindsay Marlow.

“Through the next 24 hours Columbus will get another 2 to 4 inches of rain,” she said. “The caveat being if the rain band moves through we could see amounts higher or lower depending on how the track shifts.”

Columbus is one of 28 Georgia counties under a hurricane warning. Another 72 counties are under a tropical storm warning, according to the National Weather Service.

The timing is bad, DaSilva said.

“It’s going to push through Georgia when it’s dark out.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2024, 10:39 AM.

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The Muscogee County School District superintendent will receive an 18% raise in his salary after the school board unanimously approved the amended contract Monday night — a decision made without public discussion before the vote,

The proposal to increase Superintendent David Lewis’ salary and extend his contract wasn’t on the agenda for the board’s work session, which is the gathering conducted one week before the monthly meeting to discuss items up for a vote.

Lewis will receive an increase of $44,800 in his base salary, from $243,600 to $288,400, according to the meeting’s agenda. The amended contract includes extending the agreement for another three-year term, the agenda says.

The agenda also says the salary raise and contract extension are “based on a satisfactory annual evaluation.” The evaluation and amended contract aren’t attached to the agenda, so the Ledger-Enquirer has requested a copy of those documents.

Last year, the board unanimously approved without public discussion a pay raise for Lewis. That was a 20% raise, increasing his annual base salary from $203,000 to $243,600.

Lewis was associate superintendent for learning in Polk County, Fla., when the MCSD board hired him in 2013 and gave him a three-year contract with an annual base salary of $170,000. The other raises to his base salary have been by:

Board chairwoman Pat Hugley Green, the District 1 representative, read a written statement after the vote to explain the rationale for this year’s raise.

“He has received the highest rating of satisfactory on his evaluation,” she said. “Dr. Lewis has made notable accomplishments while focusing on delivering the 10-year plan that he assessed to establish a school system and not a system of schools when he initially came here. This approach has addressed the board’s primary goal of closing the gap in student achievement.”

In a Georgia Department of Education report released this month, MCSD achieved its highest graduation rate since the state started 12 years ago measuring the rate based on whether a student graduated within four years of attending high school. MCSD’s graduation rate (94.1%) surpassed the state average (85.4%) for the 12th straight year and the national average (87%) for the 10th straight year.

When the board hired Lewis in 2013, MCSD’s graduation rate was 72.8%.

MCSD’s progress compares favorably on the SAT college entrance exam as well. For the sixth straight year, MCSD’s average composite score (1062) in the senior class outperformed the state (1030) and national average (995).

“Our students are benefiting from specific achievements in areas from improved targets and early literacy to multiple pathways for full-option diplomas for every graduate,” Green said.

Green additionally praised Lewis for “fostering strong governance, helping to create positive educational culture that supports student learning and achievement and the board’s commitment to continuous improvement, transparency and collaboration, all of which play a key role in enhancing education opportunities for every student and the district.”

While reading from a written statement, Lewis thanked the board for its “confidence and continued trust in me and my leadership. I greatly appreciate the board’s commitment over time to making the salary for this position commensurate with those of other comparable school districts throughout the state.”

The new salary ranks Lewis as the 25th highest paid superintendent among Georgia’s 180 school districts, according to the latest figures available (fiscal year 2023) in the state’s database of salaries for public officials at open.ga.gov. As of March 2024, MCSD’s enrollment of 29,541 students ranked it as the state’s 13th-largest, according to GaDOE data.

Lewis also thanked “all the members of our team, both at the cabinet level and beyond.”

As he did last year, Lewis said the salary raise, “after tithing and tax implications,” will be “dedicated in part to establishing a second four-year tuition scholarship at Columbus State University to help MCSD students who need and deserve an opportunity to become an educator in exchange for working in our school district in one of our more challenged schools.”

Kia Chambers, the countywide representative on MCSD’s nine-member board, was the only other member to speak about the superintendent’s salary raise during the meeting.

After the vote, Chambers put Lewis’ 11-year MCSD tenure in perspective when she noted the national average for school district superintendents is three years.

Chambers called such longevity “commendable, but I also think it speaks volumes about the collaboration with the board and the fact that we are truly trying to work toward being a real governance team, which means we may not always agree, but we put the students first.”

Lewis put his tenure in further perspective when he said the average tenure for a superintendent in Georgia is 2.3 years, and 72 of the 180 school districts changed superintendents last year.

“I have really enjoyed working with our board,” he said. “Sometimes we do have a difference of opinion, and that’s great, that’s healthy discussion, but I think, at the end of the day, our students and our employees are better for it.”

Lewis concluded by thanking the community for its support.

“Schools cannot do it alone,” he said.

This story was originally published October 21, 2024, 8:48 PM.

The following businesses and offices in the Columbus, Ga., area are closing due to the severe weather forecast in advance of Hurricane Helene.

As of 6:53 p.m. Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center predicted Helene will be a Category 4 storm when it makes landfall Thursday in Florida, with a 20-foot storm surge and 130-mph wind.

The National Weather Service forecast warned Columbus had the potential for wind 74 to 110 mph and flooding from 4 to 8 inches of rain.

Here are the announced business and office closings or schedule changes, as well as event cancellations, as of Thursday afternoon. If you have a news item to add to this list, please email newsroom@ledger-enquirer.com.

All branches of the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries will close Thursday at 6 p.m. They will reopen Friday at 1 p.m.

Meanwhile, all of CVL’s digital materials are available 24/7 on its website.

The customer service operator answering the phone at the Walmart on Manchester Expressway said the store is closing early, at 6 p.m. Thursday, and opening late, at 8 a.m. Friday. Normal hours are 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

MercyMed announced on its Facebook page it will be closed Friday. It plans to open for regular business hours Monday at 8:30 a.m.

The Columbus Airport announced on its Facebook page that Delta Air Line flights to Atlanta at 5:13 pm. and 9:37 p.m. are canceled. Delta Flight DL5403 scheduled for Friday at 6:35 a.m. also has been canceled.

Thursday’s 7:30 p.m. performance of Jersey Boys at the Springer Opera House has been canceled. Ticket holders are advised to check the website for more information or call the box office at 706-327-3688.

All West Central Health District locations will close at 2 p.m. Thursday and will remain closed Friday. They plan to reopen Monday at 8 a.m.

This includes Columbus and the following counties: Chattahoochee, Clay, Crisp, Dooly, Harris, Macon, Marion, Quitman, Randolph, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, Talbot, Taylor and Webster.

Easterseals West Georgia will be open Thursday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. for its children’s and adult programs.

Friday, those programs will have delayed openings. They will start at 9 a.m.

The Columbus Consolidated Government said all offices and city operations will remain open Thursday and Friday this week, but city department heads and elected officials have the authority to use discretion and flexibility regarding office hours and operations to include the option for employees working virtually.

The Columbus office for the Georgia Department of Labor will be closed Thursday and Friday.

For a roundup of school closings in the Columbus area, click here.

This story was originally published September 25, 2024, 7:25 PM.

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

706-576-6272

Ledger-Enquirer staff writer Mark Rice covers education and other issues related to youth. He also writes feature stories about any compelling topic. He has been reporting in Columbus and the Chattahoochee Valley for more than a quarter-century. He welcomes your local news tips and questions.