Tropical Storm — Pierce, Georgia

2024-09-27 to 2024-09-28 · Pierce, Georgia

Event narrative

A Blackshear firefighter was killed in the line of duty when a tree fell onto his truck when he was responding to calls during the night of the hurricane in Blackshear, GA. Widespread trees and powerlines down, restoration of power is slow due to damage and extent. A shelter was opened after the storm to provide a safe place for people to stay, and a Red Cross shelter was opened to hand out supplies. The Georgia Department of Agriculture reported that a table egg producer in Pierce County had 17 houses down.

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 1217267. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.