TYBEE ISLAND — Georgia’s most popular beach is rarely deserted this time of year, even as August temperatures turn the sands hot as embers and the typically refreshing waters into jellyfish-infested soup.
Hurricane Idalia cleared the shore Wednesday as it charged across the southern half of the state. The storm entered Georgia in the late morning hours at Category 3 strength and steadily weakened without ocean water to feed it energy.
Idalia moved into South Carolina in the evening hours as a Category 1 storm, passing several dozen miles inland from Tybee and fellow border city Savannah. By late Wednesday it had been downgraded to a tropical storm.
Idalia was met with bewilderment by coastal Georgians accustomed to storms threatening from the east and south in the Atlantic Ocean. Idalia came ashore in Florida from the Gulf of Mexico and cut a path through the coast’s normal evacuation routes.
Instead of packing up and heading west on Interstate 16, U.S. 82 or the Golden Isles Highway to Macon, Valdosta, Atlanta or elsewhere in advance of the storm, residents hunkered down.
“It’s just another day for me,” said Anthony Cade, who spent Wednesday afternoon playing disc golf on a course at a Tybee community park. “I’m not one to evacuate anyway. I’m waiting on the day I can kayak from the house to Walmart.”
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
The storm caused havoc elsewhere in Georgia. Valdosta officials urged residents to shelter in place after severe flooding Wednesday in Idalia’s wake.
Firefighters in motorboats were making water rescues in what appeared to be several feet of floodwater. Photos shared by the city on Facebook showed rescue crews wading in knee-deep water and carrying a small child from an apartment complex to safety.
More than 200,000 Georgians lost power during the storm. Utility companies quickly moved to restore electricity. Georgia Power called on its sister Southern Company subsidiaries, Alabama Power and Mississippi Power, to send reinforcement crews. Those linemen and other workers were “strategically positioned” across the region in advance of the storm, said Georgia Power’s Audrey King, a regional president based in Savannah.
Idalia led to closures of the coast’s two major suspension bridges, the Talmadge in Savannah and the Sidney Lanier in Brunswick, earlier in the day. The storm also caused consternation from government officials along the coast, including Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, who voiced dismay that residents had become “amateur meteorologists” and weren’t taking the hurricane seriously enough.
“This storm is coming from behind us, in our backdoor so to speak, and for some reason (residents) don’t seem to equate that to the storms we get from the Atlantic,” Johnson said Wednesday morning. “We need to take it as seriously as one that comes in the front door.”
Businesses along the coast battened down ahead of the storm’s arrival. Crews at the Savannah Boathouse, a marina located five miles west of the Tybee beach, pulled more than 50 boats from the water on Monday and Tuesday and put them in dry slips.
Owner Tom McCarthy said he plans to reverse the process Thursday in preparation for the busy Labor Day weekend.
Farther inland, the waterfront attracted attention as well. Idalia was expected to push an extra 2 to 3 feet of water into low-lying areas at a peak time in the tidal cycle - a king tide, when a full moon increases the gravitational pull on the water. High tide was to be around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, shortly after the storm passed into South Carolina.
Savannah officials closed waterfront parking lots along the city’s iconic River Street entertainment district. During Hurricane Dorian’s near-miss of Savannah in 2019, rising waters flooded several lots and swamped parked cars.
Dennis Jones, the leader of the local emergency management agency, encouraged citizens to stay off the streets until after Idalia had passed.
“The threat is real,” Jones said. “If you don’t have to be outside, don’t be outside.”
David Aaro, Mandi Albright, Greg Bluestein, Charles Minshew and Alexis Stevens contributed to this report.
