Matthew recovery efforts- E
By Uyen Le
It’ s been eight months since Hurricane Matthew hit the coast of Georgia, but communities in the wake of the storm’ s destruction still have a long road of recovery ahead of them.
On the morning of October 7, Hurricane Matthew made landfall on the state’ s coast. What started as a Category 3 major hurricane gradually weakened to a Category 2 hurricane. The worst impacts began Friday evening and lasted through Saturday morning, and included record-breaking storm surge, flooding, extreme rainfall and sustained hurricane-force winds.
This was the first time that hurricane-force impacts occurred along the Georgia coast since Hurricane David in 1979. In its path, the storm destroyed hundreds of Georgia homes, left countless businesses battered and three people dead.
As residents in coastal counties were evacuating, Collin Hopf, GEMA / HS Field Coordinator, was working around the clock in Chatham County’ s Emergency Operations Center.
“ I could tell it was going to be bad, even in some tropical storms we can get that kind of wind damage. This being a cat 2, I thought it’ d be worse,” said Hopf, who lost his roof because of Matthew.
In total, Matthew caused more than $ 115 million dollars in damages in Georgia. Chatham County and its municipalities alone suffered more than $ 60 million in damages. The majority of that cost was to clear nearly 2.5 million cubic yards of debris over the past six months.
Damages sustained throughout Chatham County during Matthew were primarily wind-related. Trees toppled by the wind caused widespread power outages, damaging infrastructure and blocking roads, restricting access to many areas.
In the aftermath, GEMA / HS field coordinators immediately began survey assessments. Hopf says many areas were inaccessible because damage was so severe.
“ We couldn’ t get through Garden City because it was underwater,” said Hopf.“ Getting out into Tybee was the worst with trees down and debris everywhere in the roadways.”
Since then, Chatham County and its municipalities have begun to repair roads, bridges, and public infrastructure. To date, the county and its municipalities have received more than $ 22.9 million dollars in state and federal assistance.
“ No local government can have enough reserved funds to handle a significant disaster,” said Dennis Jones, Chatham County EMA Director.“ The response and recovery efforts associated with disasters create significant stressors to the local economy. Assistance from GEMA / HS and FEMA is absolutely critical to ensuring both our economy and our community recover quickly.”
To ensure the communities affected by Hurricane Matthew received the support needed to recover and rebuild, more than a dozen GEMA / HS team members deployed to Chatham County to work side by side with federal partners for months following the storm. GEMA / HS staff remains to assist local officials as they continue with storm recovery efforts.
Now that debris operations throughout the county have concluded, Chatham Emergency Management Agency recovery operations will focus on repairs to damaged roads, bridges and public infrastructure.
As work is completed throughout the counties, additional funding will be made available to declared cities, counties and eligible not-for-profit entities.
Debris Remova
Repairs to roads and bridge
Repairs to parks & recreational facilitie
Repairs and restoration of utilitie
Emergency Protective Measure
Repairs to buildings and ground
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