All the ingredients were in place for winter mayhem. A slick coat of ice. Six inches of snow. Temperatures that struggled to hit the mid-20s.
And yet, here in the shadow of Black Rock Mountain in Georgia's northeastern corner, calm reigned Saturday after the region's first major winter storm of the season. The closest thing to Snowmageddon was the debate over which sled would speed the fastest down the big hill on Green Street.
“I was hoping for a lot more snow,” said Tom Fisher, who stood among a group of kids – and just as many adults like him – who gathered for a mid-day sledding party. “We had a lot of sleet and ice. But that’s good for the sledding. If we get a good track made, they’re going to be riding on ice.”
The storm that left no more than 2 inches of snow anywhere in metro Atlanta also mostly spared the north Georgia mountains. Only Rabun County recorded substantial snowfall, and even that was nothing compared to the accumulations of 15, 20, even 30 inches farther up the Eastern Seaboard.
Still, state and local officials continued to prepare for the worst. Strong winds, with gusts exceeding 40 mph, buffeted the area Saturday. The winds knocked down snow-laden trees, which landed on power lines, which then interrupted electric service for several thousand homes. In a few places, transformers exploded under the strain, but most outages were isolated.
No major problems were reported anywhere in the state, said Catherine Howden, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. But "the northeast area definitely remains the largest area of concern."
Dozens of power-line crews swooped into the area late Friday, and many of their trucks sat idle on Saturday, awaiting deployment, in places like the parking lot of the Clayton Wal-Mart.
A Georgia Power truck, trailed by a crew from a tree service, headed south out of Clayton about 6 a.m., restoring power and clearing Old Highway 441 one fallen pine at a time.
In the Tiger community, a tall pine lay across the road at a 45-degree angle, its top resting across the power lines. Cory Dawson, who works for Townsend Tree Service, surveyed the damage and said his crew could have it cleared within 15 minutes. Then they stowed their chainsaws and moved on to the next downed tree, a little farther up the road.
Despite the falling trees and the power outages, it was clear at daybreak Saturday that dire predictions of danger were off the mark.
State Department of Transportation crews cleared major highways leading into the northeast Georgia mountains early in the morning, plowing snow to the side of the roads before spreading salt and other de-icing materials. Traffic was light on main roads like U.S. 23 heading north from Gainesville, but cars easily traveled at or above the speed limit.
By mid-morning, the sun had broken through the clouds. Although the air temperature remained in the 20s, icy spots quickly melted on highways, and an easily navigable slush formed on most side roads.
The relatively heavy snowfall in Rabun County even attracted sightseers.
Kevin and Kelly Poe of Jackson County left home early Saturday with their two children and drove two hours to Tallulah Falls. They pulled their pickup into a snow-covered parking area at a picturesque overlook above Tallulah Gorge.
“We’re over here to see more of the snow,” Kevin Poe said as he rummaged for hats and gloves. “We only got a quarter-inch at home.”
So the family headed off into the woods, for a bracing hike through the snow.
Their daughter, Ellie, who is 8, wore a heavy coat with a fur-fringed hood. Six-year-old Owen, who was covered head to toe in insulated camouflage gear, was eager to hit the trail.
“Cold or hot,” Kelly Poe said, “he doesn’t care.”
In the mountains, several residents said, no one gets too bothered by a little snow – especially on an otherwise uneventful January weekend.
“This is our every winter,” Tom Fisher said in Mountain City, watching his children and those from other families in the neighborhood ride flat plastic and metal sleds through the snow. “If somebody in Georgia’s going to get snow, it’s us.”
Across the street from the starting point for sledding is Jae Lumley’s house. He grew up in western Massachusetts – “I was raised in this,” he said – but moved to Mountain City 24 years ago.
“It’s like the family hill,” he said as he watched the sledders. “I raised my kids out here.”
After a while, Lumley fetched his old-school wooden sled, the one with metal runners. On his first run down the middle of Green Street, he seemed to barely touch the pavement.
When he finished, snow and slush had saturated his khaki cargo pants. But he reveled in the road conditions that strike fear in more winter-averse parts of the state.
“We go for the black ice,” he said.
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