Across Georgia

DARIEN - It took three hours, but McIntosh County school board member Dwight Jordan saved his seat this week by producing a couple of utility bills.

The county Board of Elections voted to accept a phone bill and a power bill as proof Mr. Jordan does indeed live in coastal Georgia's McIntosh County, not in Hardeeville, S.C., at an address he once gave to register his Dodge truck.

If Mr. Jordan had been found to live in South Carolina, he could have been removed from the November ballot.

JEKYLL ISLAND - Jekyll Island residents and businesses will again be able to buy federally subsidized flood insurance after President Bush's signing of a bill removing the island from a protective act.

The John H. Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources Act added Jekyll Island to a list of barrier islands in 1991. The act was written to discourage development on barrier islands. It says that any new or existing structure that is altered by 50 percent or more is not eligible for federally subsidized flood insurance.

U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., asserted that state-owned Jekyll Island already has adequate protection from overdevelopment. State law requires the island to remain 65 percent natural.

SAVANNAH - If you're planning to stick around coastal Georgia, you'd better move over.

About half again as many people are expected to populate the coast by 2030, according to a report commissioned by the Coastal Georgia Regional Development Center.

Over the next two decades, the report predicts, Georgia's six coastal counties and the next tier of four inland counties will grow to about 844,000 people.

Georgia Tech's Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development produced the report, in which population projections outstrip those from the Georgia Office of Planning and Budget.

MACON - Northbound lanes of Interstate 75 were closed for nearly six hours Wednesday after a truck carrying butane lighters overturned and burned.

The accident at about 8 a.m. blocked off I-75 north at the Interstate 16 east interchange as emergency response crews worked to clear the scene.

I-75 reopened at about 1:45 p.m., Macon police said.

Marvin Riggins, assistant chief of the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department, said the truck driver apparently swerved and lost control, causing the truck to overturn. Inside the truck, the lighters caught on fire.

- Edited from wire reports