From delaying classes to keep children from waiting for buses in the bitter cold to opening emergency warming centers, authorities across Georgia are getting ready for the expected blast of Arctic air.
With morning lows Thursday expected to plummet to as low as 5 degrees across far north Georgia, school officials in several mountain counties, including White, Murray, Habersham, Whitfield, Catoosa, Chattooga and Dade, announced Wednesday that the start of classes Thursday will be delayed two hours. Schools in Haralson County will begin classes three hours late.
In Catoosa County, school officials said buses will stop at each home, and students should wait inside and watch for the bus. Bus drivers will blow the bus horn if necessary, and there may be some delays since buses will be stopping at each home.
In metro Atlanta, Channel 2 Action News chief meteorologist Glenn Burns is forecasting lows early Thursday around 12 degrees, with wind chills between zero and 10 degrees.
That's cold enough that the City of Atlanta opened the Old Adamsville Recreation Center at 3404 Delmar Lane as an emergency warming shelter at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Tony Ray was among those at the recreation center Wednesday night. The former Marine said he heard about the emergency shelter on the news and from a friend. He said he was familiar with cold weather from his days of living in Chicago, Minnesota and other places.
“I knew it was going to get down to 14 degrees, and I have nowhere to live right now,” Ray said. “Right now, I’m down on my luck, and I’m just trying to do what I can do to make ends meet.”
In DeKalb County, Emergency Management Agency officials announced that county libraries and recreations centers will be used as warming centers during their normal business hours, while fire stations 6, 8, 21 and 25 will be open 24 hours for citizens in need during the cold temperatures.
Fulton County is also opening its fire stations as temporary warming sites. The nine stations will be open to assist residents affected by the cold until further notice.
Ten warming centers will be available in the Augusta area, according to the Augusta-Richmond County Emergency Management Agency.
The planning isn’t limited to the northern half of Georgia, either. The Effingham County Emergency Management Agency is opening an emergency warming center at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Rincon, just north of Savannah.
There are several steps homeowners can take to protect their plants, pipes and pets, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prepared a guide to staying safe and healthy in cold temperatures.
—Photographer Ben Gray contributed to this report.
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