Hurricane Hermine scarcely lived up to its frightful billing. After all, local headlines in Valdosta had screamed in big bold type “Batten Down.”
Hardly.
Hermine lost much of its punch after it barreled ashore Friday, weakening into a tropical storm by the time it passed over the Panhandle and into South Georgia.
Most residents who had been anxiously preparing for a brutal reckoning with Mother Nature were instead breathing sighs of relief as the storm dumped buckets of rain - up to six inches in some areas - then swept through the southeast corner of the state and up the coast.
Streets briefly flooded. Gusty winds reached 50 mph, knocking out power for thousands and upending hundreds of trees, some of them smashing into homes, cars and garages.
But, by and large, the damage was nowhere near as bad as many had feared.
“We ducked the big one,” said Paige Dukes, spokeswoman for the Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency. As she sat in the emergency management center - with its big digital maps and lines of desks - personnel from the sheriffs office and other agencies were happily standing down.
By late Friday, emergency workers throughout South Georgia were shifting back to normal operations, shelters were emptied out and power crews were scrambling to turn the lights back on. Most predicted service would be restored by Saturday.
The National Hurricane Center said Hermine made landfall at 1:30 a.m. due south of Tallahassee at the “bend” where Florida’s Panhandle meets its Peninsula. It was downgraded to a tropical storm just before 5 a.m.
The storm took one life. A homeless man was killed when a tree fell on him as he was sleeping in a tent near Ocala in the central part of Florida, said Gov. Rick Scott.
There were some scary moments. That was especially true in Savannah, where a tornado kicked up.
Sam Hochberger, an 87-year-old New Jersey native who retired to Savannah, heard debris pounding his home early Friday morning: “Bam, bam, bam.” He sat bolt upright in bed with his wife and hoped the roof would hold.
It did. His yard was a wreck, though.
“This is what the tropical storm did,” Hochberger said, surveying the scene of pummeled trees.
He held a rake, hoping to make a dent. He had a job ahead of him. A street sweeper came by and barely seemed to have any luck.
Elsewhere around town, many had been confident from the beginning that the city — which has dodged its share of storms over the years — would again escape mostly unscathed.
Many businesses defiantly stayed open. Even Mrs. Hope, the physic reader downtown by Clary’s Cafe, had her open sign lit.
At Staff Zone, a West Bay Street staffing company, folks were in good spirits.
“Savannah has always been lucky. Seems like we always get missed,” Nolan Driggers, a manager said.
At Henry’s diner, Dewi Prasetio, the manager, laughed at the weather reports.
“I think we have good people,” she joked, with a wry grin, before serving up a spinach omelet.
Further south, in Valdosta, many endured a sleepless night as Hermine entered under the cover of darkness.
The city already had several days of rain that soaked the ground and weakened the grip of trees to the soil. The fear was that a big hurricane would topple them.
About 70 people, a mix of those from mobile homes, hard-hit areas and homeless people, sought refuge at a shelter set up in the Mathis Municipal Auditorium. It lost power about 5 a.m. Generators were eventually brought in.
After a restless night sleeping — or not sleeping — on cots, many are gathered in the couches and chairs in the front lobby. They watched the storm driving sheets of rain down the streets.
Curtis Cain, 35, from nearby Naylor, said he loaded up his wife and children Thursday night when the water became ankle deep in the yard by his mobile home.
“I don’t want to be one of those people who waits too long,” he said. “My wife was deathly scared.”
His wife, Cynthia, couldn’t turn off her mothering instincts at the shelter. She was helping calm the children of other families, handing out coloring books and playing with them.
“What can you do when your community is in a crisis?” she said. “What can you do?”
Evelyn Salazar is only 9, but she fully understood the reason that her family came to the shelter.
“They were scared the hurricane would destroy the house,” she said.
John Paul Link, 40, is homeless. He had been looking at the prospect of riding out the storm in the woods. At about 4 p.m. Thursday, with the rain coming down, he started talking to a stranger as he was walking down the street.
“He noticed my backpack. And he asked if I had a place,” he said. “I said, ‘No, I’m homeless.’ He gave me money for a hotel.”
He added, “I’m very blessed. But I’m worried about my friend Kelly. She’s in the woods and she had a stroke three months ago.”
Nate Jones stood outside under the awning of the Hilton hotel, watching the storm do it’s worst. It was early Friday and he was trying to figure out if he was expected at work. The wind whipped the trees mightily and the rain rushed down the road. He had just started working at the local company that makes aviation batteries and he didn’t want to miss work.
“I was in (Hurricane) Katrina. This is nothing compared to Katrina,” he said.
