Bleckley County crews cleaning up after tornado causes destruction
Crews spent Thursday working diligently to clean up the mess caused by Wednesday's storms.
COCHRAN, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Crews spent Thursday working diligently to clean up the mess caused by Wednesday’s storms.
According to Matthew Kelley, the Emergency Management Director for Bleckley County, crews have made a lot of progress so far.
He says a tornado hit Cochran and other parts of Bleckley County Wednesday night. Public safety agencies are working together to repair damage and check homes to make sure everyone is safe.
“It happened real quick, and it caught us suddenly, but we all came together real quick to get it mitigated,” Kelley said. “I’m really impressed with everybody’s coordination working together to get it done.”
The tornado also damaged part of Middle Georgia State University’s Cochran campus. David Sims, the Associate Vice President of Facilities for the university, says campus power was back on Thursday morning, but school officials canceled classes because debris blocked most of the roads around campus.
There’s also some damage on campus.
“We have several other roofs with extensive damage,” Sims said. “Between 80 and 100 trees down. We’re very fortunate no one was injured.”
Kelley says power crews brought in extra help to restore power as quickly as possible and that it shouldn’t be long before everything is cleaned up.
“Hopefully within the next day or two we’ll be looking back on this as something we don’t want to have to go through again for a long time,” Kelley said.
Crews are still assessing damage caused by the storms.
Middle Georgia State University asks students to pay attention to its website for information about Friday classes.
