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If it were Columbia County, Pam Tucker would know.
A hard-driving storm with driving rain, lashing winds and pelting hail swept through downtown Augusta about 6 p.m. Tuesday, slowing traffic and knocking down trees on Greene, Broad and Reynolds streets.
Richmond County dispatchers said splintered trees and fallen branches were scattered about the downtown business district. Dispatchers said they had received some calls about damaged property and several calls about vehicle damage.
The storm appears to have been an isolated event. A dispatcher for the North Augusta Department of Public Safety said they did not receive any calls about storm damage Tuesday evening.
A Georgia Power Co. spokesman said 58 power outages were reported in the Augusta area around the time the storm occurred.
Bruce Cherry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in West Columbia, S.C., said the event was a severe thunderstorm with straight-line winds.
"It's basically like a downburst. The core of the storm collapses down toward the ground from above," Mr. Cherry said.
He said his agency had no measurement of the wind's velocity.
Reach Jonathan Overstreet at (706) 823-3708 or jonathan.overstreet@augustachronicle.com.
Comments
If it were Columbia County, Pam Tucker would know.
Having moving here from Gulfport, Ms. in 1984. Y'all don't know what a storm is. The local tv stations get all uptight every time it rains with a little wind. I lived 1 1/2 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico and went through every hurricane from 1961 til 1984. Katrina was the worst to ever hit the Us. But before that in 1969 Camille was the baseline. The trees shown here have no dirt around them only concrete and how old and infected were they. lighten up AC and realize what a real storm can do.
That was the dumbest article ever.Yeah, the storm targeted downtown. It was a freaking storm. It doesn't have a plan.
Downtown needed a good hosing anyway, it was smelling of old urine.
"Tell it like it is"...... didn't. Comparing a hurricane to storms we have around here isn't realistic. FOR THIS AREA....... the storm that hit Augusta was a bad one. It is unusual for this magnitude of a storm to hit this community. Anytime it rains so hard that you are unable to view the house across the street from you........ that's unusual for the Augusta area.
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