Weathering the Future

WEATHERING THE FUTURE

Preparing Georgia’s Infrastructure for Hurricane & Storm Season

BRETT HILLESHEIM

Every autumn, Georgia slips into a season of contrast. The air cools, the leaves blaze red and gold across the hills, and football stadiums swell with fans on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. Yet alongside this beauty comes volatility. Fall is also hurricane season, and with it the threat of storms that test the limits of Georgia’s infrastructure. Roads, power grids, coastal dunes, and water systems are all thrust into the spotlight when the winds rise and the rain falls. For the engineers who design, maintain, and modernize these systems, the question is no longer how to repair what storms break, but how to build with resilience at the core.

That question has never been more urgent. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent Report Card for Georgia’s Infrastructure gave the state a C+ overall. The grade was middling, but it tells a nuanced story. Bridges have improved dramatically over the past decade, with nearly 98 percent now rated fair or good compared to just 78 percent in 2013. The state’s ports earned some of the highest marks, buoyed by record investments and careful planning. But stormwater systems remain stressed, transit options remain thin, and many water systems are still catching up to today’s demands. As ASCE concluded, Georgia has made important progress, but long-term resilience is uneven and underfunded.

WHEN ROADS BECOME LIFELINES

When storm clouds gather on the Georgia coast, one of the most remarkable displays of infrastructure resilience kicks into action: the contraflow plan for Interstate 16. In a mandatory evacuation, GDOT reverses the eastbound lanes from Savannah to U.S. 441 in Dublin, so that all lanes travel west toward safety, creating a one-way lifeline stretching approximately 125 miles.

The logistics are complex and precise. During a contraflow operation, GDOT halts construction where possible—even reopening some previously closed lanes unless the roadway is structurally impassable, such as during concrete slab replacements. Ramps feeding into I-16 eastbound from I-95 are closed; median crossovers allow traffic to move from the normal west-bound lanes into the contraflow lanes. One crossover near the I-95 interchange—a double-lane crossover built for greater capacity—helps manage the swell of vehicles.

Jill Nagel, a GDOT spokesperson, explains the mindset behind the operation, saying, “Everyone knows their role, and getting people out safely.” She adds that times when construction “replacing concrete slabs” is underway are rare during evacuation orders; otherwise, GDOT works to remove lane closures to permit maximal traffic flow.

Authorities coordinate closely across agencies. GDOT coordinates with Georgia State Patrol, Georgia Emergency Management & Homeland Security (GEMA/HS), local law enforcement, and other agencies to stage road patrols, set up changeable message signs, and manage ramp gate closures. Ahead of contraflow, GDOT ensures median crossovers are functional—these allow drivers to shift from eastbound ramps into the reversed lanes. After U.S. 441 in Dublin, traffic returns to normal directional flow.

GDOT says contraflow is only activated when the situation demands it. The Governor must issue an executive order, declaring a State of Emergency, and mandating evacuation. Preparations include pre-staging equipment, setting up signage and gates, and ensuring that emergency and law enforcement teams are in place to respond quickly to incidents along the route.

Timing is critical. GDOT generally initiates contraflow during daylight hours to ensure visibility and safety. Before activation, crews inspect the length of interstate to confirm no major obstructions, and ensure crossovers, gates, and signage are ready. Roadside assets like HERO units and CHAMP operators are deployed to assist motorists, clear debris or disabled vehicles, and provide real-time information through message boards and 511 travel info services.

The last few evacuations using contraflow—for storms like Irma in 2017 and earlier events—offered learning experiences. Officials took note of traffic surge, timing of ramp closures, communications, and public responsiveness. Each iteration of the plan is refined based on after action reports.

In Georgia, roads really can become lifelines. Through careful planning, cross-agency coordination, and decades of experience, GDOT’s contraflow operations offer both physical escape routes and reassurance that when storms threaten, engineered systems can deliver safety.

Georgia Power’s hardest test came in the fall of 2024, when Hurricane Helene struck with force. It wasn’t just wind and rain— it was thousands of damaged components in the electric system. The storm left 5,000+ power poles in need of repair or replacement, 9,000+ wire spans (equivalent to about 425 miles of wire), 500+ transformers damaged, and 1,500+ trees down on power lines.

The scale of outages was massive. Over 1.3 million Georgia Power customers were impacted, and by early October the company had restored service to more than 95% of those affected. In the areas most severely hit—Augusta, Savannah, Valdosta—restoration lagged behind but crews worked relentlessly. Kim Greene, Georgia Power’s chairman, president, and CEO, praised the response force, saying, “We have matched the devastation of Hurricane Helene with an army of thousands of lineworkers… who continue to work through fallen trees and miles of broken power poles and downed lines to bring light back to Georgia homes and businesses.”

Yet, even amidst destruction, some of the newer upgrades in the grid made a clear difference. While not every section of the infrastructure could avoid damage, smart-grid technologies and automated systems helped reduce the breadth and duration of outages. Georgia Power reports that more than 70% of its distribution grid now incorporates what the company describes as “self-healing” or automated devices capable of detecting faults and rerouting power around them. Those capacities prevented nearly 94 million outage minutes over the past year—minutes that, in many cases, might have meant days without power for customers.

These improvements are part of a broader resilience strategy pushed forward with both state and federal support. In October 2024, Georgia Power secured a $160 million federal grant from the Department of Energy under its Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program. The funds are earmarked for transmission line upgrades, integrating grid-enhancing technologies like dynamic line rating, and preparing for extreme weather while supporting renewable energy integration. The company also matched that grant with local investment, showing a shared commitment to these upgrades.

The aftermath of Helene also provided learning opportunities and exposed remaining vulnerabilities. In some areas, damage was so extensive that Georgia Power personnel described to media outlets how they effectively had to rebuild sections of the grid rather than simply making repair patches. Managerial coordination, pre-positioned crews, automated outage maps, and digital communication with customers (through apps and estimated restoration times) all played roles in speeding recovery.

One illustrative quote comes from the company’s description of its work:

“This rapid response has been possible through the implementation of new ‘smart grid’ technologies and the quick work of pre-positioned teams who were ready to respond as soon as conditions were safe to do so.”

Storms like Helene make clear: having power restored quickly isn’t simply about comfort—it’s about safety, commerce, health, emergency services, and community stability. It’s about refrigeration, medical equipment, traffic signals, water treatment—all systems that depend on reliable electricity.

The investment of $160 million is not just money spent, but engineering decisions baked into every line and pole. It reflects recognition that the grid must do more than handle ordinary demand. It must be ready for the extraordinary. It must bend, reroute, heal.

NATURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE FUTURE OF RESILIENCE

Nowhere is the tension between human settlement and natural force more visible than along Georgia’s coast. On Tybee Island, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local leaders have for decades partnered on the Shore Protection Project, a recurring cycle of beach renourishment and dune restoration. Every few years, sand is dredged and pumped back onto the beach, dunes are sculpted, and grasses are planted to anchor the fragile barrier. These efforts are not cosmetic. They are engineered buffers designed to absorb wave energy and storm surge before it can reach homes, roads, and utilities. The next dune reinforcement is scheduled for 2027, part of a long arc of planning that accepts storms as inevitable but refuses to accept devastation as the outcome.

Inland, the challenges look different but are no less pressing. Heavy rains can overwhelm creeks, rivers, and drainage systems, flooding neighborhoods and damaging property. Engineers are responding with larger culverts, expanded detention basins, and increasingly with green infrastructure—bioswales that slow runoff, permeable pavements that let water seep into the ground, and rain gardens that turn stormwater into an asset rather than a threat. Yet ASCE’s report makes clear that stormwater systems remain underfunded. Progress is visible, but investment has not kept pace with need, leaving many communities vulnerable to the kind of flooding that rarely makes national headlines but wreaks havoc on daily life.

Georgia’s ports tell a more optimistic story. The Port of Savannah, now the fastest-growing container terminal in the country, is critical to both the state and national economy. Any disruption ripples far beyond the coastline. Recognizing this, the Georgia Ports Authority has committed $4.5 billion in capital investments over the next decade. Higher elevation terminals, redundant power supplies, and hardened facilities are all part of the strategy. In the 2024 Report Card, ports earned the state’s highest grades, a testament to both foresight and the recognition that resilience is inseparable from economic competitiveness.

Across every sector, technology is increasingly the thread weaving resilience together. Sensors embedded in highways and bridges, drones inspecting power lines and coastal dunes, and real-time control systems in water utilities allow for faster detection and response. Georgia Power emphasizes this shift, noting that “the company is investing in technology to increase automation and control, providing more reliable service to customers during storms.” It is resilience measured not only in tons of concrete but in lines of code.

Still, infrastructure alone cannot carry the burden. Public awareness and community preparation are essential. The Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency urges residents to know their evacuation zones, prepare three-day kits, and stay informed during storm season. Engineers can design the safest possible evacuation routes and the most resilient grids, but those designs succeed only if the public understands and uses them.

As the state looks ahead, the choices are stark. Resilience cannot be achieved through emergency repairs alone. It requires stable funding that supports lifecycle upgrades, not just post-disaster patchwork. It requires blending nature-based solutions with traditional engineering, letting wetlands and dunes work alongside levees and seawalls. It requires coordination across agencies, from GDOT to GEMA to utilities, so that every system functions as part of a larger whole. Most of all, it requires a shift in mindset— from reacting to disasters to preparing for them.

Fall in Georgia will always bring its dual face: the beauty of cool mornings and fiery leaves, and the looming threat of storms gathering offshore. But resilience is not a passive hope; it is an active choice. In the contraflow lanes of I-16, in the smart switches of Georgia Power’s grid, in the renourished dunes of Tybee Island, and in the upgraded stormwater basins of inland towns, that choice is already being made.

As Mayor Andre Dickens put it recently, “This is not just about building structures. It’s about building confidence, stability, and opportunity for the future.” The storms are coming. But Georgia’s engineers— through foresight, innovation, and unrelenting effort—are ensuring that the state will face them not with fear, but with strength.