Gov. Nathan Deal’s top aides wrestled with the fallout of last week’s snowstorm while they were about 8,500 miles away on a state-sponsored trip to South Africa.
Deal chief of staff Chris Riley and the governor’s chief spokeswoman, Jen Talaber Ryan, were part of an economic development mission that traveled to South Africa on Dec. 6 and is set to return Wednesday to Atlanta.
Other members of the delegation include state tourism and economic development officials, budget officers, higher education staffers and representatives from Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines.
The weeklong itinerary included stops in Johannesburg and Cape Town, where members of the Georgia delegation met with executives from Coke and Delta, industry trade groups and South African officials. Tours of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture and Hisense, a tech manufacturer that houses its U.S. headquarters in Suwanee, were also on the agenda.
The cost of the trip was not immediately available, according to the state Department of Economic Development.
Georgia signed a memorandum of agreement in June 2014 with the province of Western Cape, a territory of about 6.5 million people that includes Cape Town, that aimed to form a closer collaboration on agriculture, tourism and the renewable energy industry.
The governor, who remained in Georgia, handled the snowfall that blanketed parts of metro Atlanta with as much as a foot of snow differently than previous wintry weather.
There were no executive orders declaring pre-emptive states of emergency and no public statements or press conferences professing a better-safe-than-sorry attitude that have prefaced other recent storms.
Instead, he relied on his state agency heads to lead the response. And from warmer climes in South Africa, Riley sent administration officials memos telling them to use their own discretion in letting employees work from home or leave the office early.
On Monday, Deal credited the state’s behind-the-scenes preparation for the storm, which included dispatching brine crews to key highway interchanges to keep busy roads open during inclement weather. The state Transportation Department also recently doubled its brine storage capacity statewide.
“We’ve upgraded in terms of training, we’ve upgraded in terms of stockpiling supplies,” the governor said. “And also we’ve upgraded equipment that makes it easier to do things like brining the roads – pre-treatments that made a difference.”
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