Hurricane (Typhoon) — Jeff Davis, Georgia

2024-09-27 to 2024-09-28 · Jeff Davis, Georgia

Event narrative

Widespread trees and powerlines were down throughout the county, many across roads and homes causing entrapments. At 2:15 am on 9/27, the EM reported a fatality in a mobile home. A follow-up media report indicated that there was a male and female killed in a mobile home along Highway 19 at Adams Cemetery Road when the trailer was lifted off of its foundation and thrown into a nearby field. A tree fell on a mobile home along Bell Telephone Road and killed one person inside per a media report. Another person was reported missing. About 85% of county residents were without power. Many businesses in Hazelhurst suffered roof and awning damage. A large tree fell on a home along US 221 causing the roof to collapse. The Georgia Farm Bureau reported numerous flattened or damaged chicken houses in Jeff Davis county.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Helene made landfall as a category 4 with peak winds of near 140 mph in the Florida Big

Bend just east of the Aucilla River Entrance in Taylor County, late Thursday evening September 26,

2024. Helene's main impact to southeast Georgia and northeast Florida was wind damage as it

tracked quickly north-northeast. The very powerful hurricane and the forward motion produced a

wide swath of wind damage across the forecast area with peak wind gusts 55 to 75 mph across the

eastern half of the area, and western zones up to 75 to 100 mph from the Suwannee Valley area

northward through interior southeast GA. The max wind gust of 100 mph was measured at the Alma

GA ASOS in the early morning hours of Friday September 27th. Given the strength of these winds,

widespread power outages, structure damage and downed or uprooted trees occurred across inland

southeast GA and portions of northeast FL. At least 1 tornado occurred, which was in Coffee county.

Maximum rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches were located over western half of the area.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1217254. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.