KITE, Ga. — Johnson County is one of the Central Georgia counties that was hit hardest by Hurricane Helene. Folks are still working to get back to normal, but one of their hardest-hit towns, Kite, is still getting power back in some areas.
As you drive through Johnson County to get to Kite, you'll still see a a lot of trees down on the side of the road.
"I'm not gonna say totally destroyed, but every road in our town and city, and all of our county roads had some type of debris on it," Johnson County EMA Director Shawn Wombles said.
He said as of right now, it's still going to take time for things to get back to the way they were. He said about 400-500 homes in the county have structural damage from Helene, and about 12-14 businesses in the county also got damaged.
"It's like one of the EMC's put on their Facebook post- it took 'em 80-something years to build their, their power grid. And they've rebuilt it in 15, 16, 17 days," Wombles said.
The good new is most of the county's got power restored - about 98% had power around Monday at noon, he said. But some areas were hit harder than others, and they're still working to get them back on the grid.
"Definitely on the east side of our county where we're at now in the Kite area, and then in the southern tip of our county down around Adrian. Both of those small communities was hit extremely hard," Wombles said.
In Kite, volunteers have been busy literally cleaning things up. After Wombles asked the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA) for help for folks without power, they sent over a semi-truck that has 12 washers and 12 dryers for anyone to use, free of charge.
Volunteers like Mary Jo Buxton have been busy taking in laundry from neighbors, washing it, drying it, and getting it ready for folks to pick back up.
"When everything else in the world's going wrong, having clean clothes- it makes a difference," Buxton said.
She said since they opened the truck over a week ago, they've done almost 600 loads of laundry for people.
"We still have so many people in the area who don't have power. Uhm, mine came on yesterday," Buxton said.
Kite's a tiny town of about 200 people, but volunteers have welcomed anyone who needed help taking a load off.
"They come from Wadley, just up 221. And people from Swainsboro that don't have lights," Buxton said.
Clean laundry might be something little we all take for granted, but in Kite, laundry is a lesson in how people can help their neighbors clean up after a storm.
Buxton said the laundry services will continue as needed in Kite, and you can follow the Lighthouse Outreach Center's Facebook page to keep updated.
Wombles said all of their state routes are open but they might still have some debris or fiber lines down, so he asked that people continue to drive carefully.