Zeta causes 1,500 power outages in New Salem

Wind and rain from tropical storm Zeta came through Dade County overnight on Oct. 28 and into the morning of Oct. 29, causing over 1,500 residents in New Salem to lose power.

 

While not as severe as Dade was expecting, the damage knocked over several trees and power poles on the top of Lookout Mountain. County Executive Ted Rumley said Georgia Power was out in the area for several hours working to get the power back on.

 

“There [was] a lot of people – practically the whole top of the mountain [without power],” Rumley said. “They just [had] to bear with them due to trees being down and power lines and transformers being blown over.”

 

On Oct. 28, Dade County’s Facebook page reported that Zeta had strengthened from a tropical storm to a category two hurricane, meaning that the county was in a tropical storm warning that increased its chances for high-speed wind gusts, heavy rain and flooding. The Emergency Operations Center was set up that day and ran into the morning of Oct. 29.

 

According to WSBTV Atlanta, in the state of Georgia, over 1 million power outages were reported on the morning of Oct. 29, with 92,000 outages in Cobb county.  A single death was reported in Cherokee County after a tree fell and crashed into a mobile home.

 

Across the country, over 2.6 million people were left without power, at least three people have been killed, many communities in the Gulf Coast were flooded and towns in Louisiana, where Zeta made landfall, are completely devastated.