Sallie Mood debris site
A debris story: Hurricane Matthew Robert W. Drewry Director of Public Works Chatham County Savannah, Georgia
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he breeze was rustling through the beautiful emerald green trees and Spanish moss that makes Savannah and Chatham County, Georgia, one of the top tourist destinations on the east coast. But October 7, 2016, was anything but a normal night in Savannah. The streets were quiet. The majority of the residents had evacuated from the county. It was the calm before the storm. Chatham Emergency Management had been tracking a Category 3 hurricane, Matthew, in the Atlantic. Matthew had www.apwa.net
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made his way up the coast of Florida heading for South Carolina and had us in his sights. While the weather was still relatively calm, personnel from the County were hunkered down in the Emergency Operations Center bracing for the approaching storm and planning for the recovery. The storm side swiped us in the early hours of October 8, 2016. Tybee Island, the most eastern point of Chatham County, received winds up to 96 mph, which is Category 1 strength. At historic Fort Pulaski, the storm surge surpassed the equipment stationed August 2017
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