Union County Sole Commissioner Lamar Paris

BLAIRSVILLE, Ga. – Union County Sole Commissioner Lamar Paris posted a word of thanks on Facebook late Sunday evening, Dec. 10, to all who helped across the county during the fallout from Winter Storm Benji:

The Road Dept, as usual, has done an exceptional job. Forecast Temps tomorrow will be between 45° and 50° by early afternoon. This should clear up most if not all the roads. I want to thank GDOT for doing a good job on the state highways. We often forget their vital role.

While some may be frustrated that it took so long to get power back on, and some still waiting, the EMC has been doing all they can with 20 crews covering 4 counties. I am sure they will also want to improve their call wait times.

When this is all over, we will all be meeting to see what improvements can and will be made on response times for future weather events.

Thanks to all Union County and City of Blairsville Public Safety personnel including Police, Sheriff’s Dept, Fire and EMS, Ambulance, Union General Hospital, City and County Rd crews. Private contractors with motorgraders, (Colditz, Ricky Rich Grading, Junior Bridges Const, David Miller Trucking, Derek Stepp) and Gene Nelson and Georgia Forestry, who helped with tree removal, Larry Garrett, Mgr and my office staff who worked Saturday and Sunday to assist. Verizon, AT&T, Windstream for keeping our communication going. To those who I have forgotten to mention, I will add when reminded. It has been a good team effort.

In addition to scraping, salting and graveling hundreds of miles of roads, we removed nearly 100 trees from county roads. Just imagine all the trees and limbs on the thousands of miles of EMC power line r/w.

A broken power line and pole near state Route 60.

As for those still without power, Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) announced this morning crews will be working to restore power in the following areas Monday: Sunnyside, Hwy. 175, Hayesville, Gumlog, Ivylog, Choestoe, Suches, Aska, Dial, Morganton, My Mountain, Spur 60 and Loving Road.

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