Red Cross board member Norman Nicholson was driving through neighborhoods affected by flooding Friday, looking for people who need help. Mr. Nicholson called in a team to help a family on Chelsea Drive. JONATHAN ERNST/STAFF

Earl leaves lasting impression

Local cleanup efforts continue as water, erosion chew away at road shoulders likely to create more washouts

Web posted September 5, 1998

By Alisa DeMao and Debbie Steele
Staff Writers

The bite of Tropical Storm Earl could still be felt for weeks in the Augusta area.

Draining water and sinking mud can continue to chew away at road shoulders and pavement for days and may create more washouts, said Mike Green, assistant director of public works for Richmond County.

``There's a lot of road shoulder erosion,'' he said Friday afternoon as cleanup efforts continued. ``There have been reports of sinkage. And we won't know about those problems until they occur. There's no way to predict them.''

Work crews had to block off one lane of Frontage Road, near Bobby Jones Expressway, on Friday morning after it washed out because of erosion.

Cleanup from the storm also will take a couple of weeks. Right now, crews are dragging downed trees and other debris out of roads and will return later to clear them away.

EARL'S RAMPAGE

NEWS

•Flood cleanup •Lasting impression •Residents may move

PREVIOUS REPORTS

•Earl floods region •Homes inundated •Some flooding reduced

Other problems continued to crop up Friday: A storm-related power outage cut short classes Friday at Columbia County's Greenbrier High school.

``Georgia Power kept working on it Thursday night, and they kept telling us (Friday) that it would be 30 more minutes, 45 more minutes, and we just decided to call the day,'' said Gloria Hamilton, Greenbrier principal. ``We had put in our day, so we let them go home.''

Students were sent home at noon.

Things were different at nearby Greenbrier Elementary, where the biggest casualty of the power outage was the lunch menu. More than 450 Greenbrier pupils missed out on pizza and ended up with peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, or turkey sandwiches.

``We had to change the menu for lunch and also for breakfast,'' Principal Charles Henderson said. ``We were disabled. But the classes ran as scheduled. We didn't have any problems there -- the teachers were still teaching. We used our outdoor classroom area a little bit more than usual, but it worked out real well.''

The mouth of Lake Olmstead where Rae's Creek empties is swollen after flash floods hit Augusta on Thursday. JEFF JANOWSKI/STAFF

Columbia County School Superintendent Tom Dohrmann said the elementary school remained open because officials couldn't release the younger children without first trying to get each parent to the school to pick students up.

``We have so many kids whose parents are working,'' Mr. Henderson said, ``... It's different with the high schools. They can go. They can take care of themselves.''

The rest of the county was fairly calm following Thursday's torrential rains and high winds. Motorists along Stevens Creek Road reported flooding early Friday. However, by noon the road was open to traffic.

Chief John Tomberlin with the Grovetown Department of Public Safety said his men were ``just cleaning up stuff'' following a long day's work Thursday.

``There's just a lot of debris,'' he said. ``We had to go on Gordon Highway and remove some trees that fell out there yesterday...just water running everywhere.''