Irma’s local impact not as bad as anticipated
Hurricane Irma slowed to a tropical storm as it approached Northwest Georgia and little damage was reported in Walker and Catoosa counties.
But downed trees and power lines, along with scattered power outages, were reported in both counties, officials said.
According to Catoosa County 911 Emergency Management’s Doug Flury, Catoosa had no significant power outages, saying outages were “here and there.”
Street lights in Ringgold were out for a short period of time but were fully operational Tuesday morning, Sept. 12, and no major accidents were reported, he said.
Creeks were nowhere near flood level, so Catoosa escaped with just flash flooding, Flury said.
“Luckily, Irma slowed reported down throughout the county and its cities.
Officials said power outages due to falling trees were reported throughout Monday evening, Sept. 11, and into the early morning hours of Sept. 12.
According to Public Relations Director Joe Legge, 10 individuals took shelter at the Walker County shelter at the agricultural building in Rock Spring on Sept. 11.
Most of those who overnighted at the shelter left around 7 a.m. Sept. 12, he said.
Legge said an elderly couple— the man requiring oxygen— was transported by Walker County Transit and left the shelter around 11 a.m. Sept. 12.
LaFayette experienced a large volume of power outages in the north end of the city after a tree collapsed power lines along Stanfield Road.
Neighboring residents on Stanfield Road said the LaFayette City Works and LaFayette Fire & Safety worked quickly to remove the tree damages and repaired the power lines.
LaFayette reported that the majority of power outages in the north end of the city were restored shortly after 9 p.m.
Other Walker County residents posted on Facebook that their power was out for a period of time after 10 p.m. Sept. 11. Some posted that the power would flicker on and off and return.
There is some damage to a traffic signal on North Main Street at Culberson Street, but just like Ringgold, no significant infrastructural damage was reported.