Firefighter injured during tropical storm
Published 10:04 am Tuesday, September 12, 2017
MOULTRIE, Ga. — Emergency management officials say one Moultrie firefighter was hurt during Tropical Storm Irma — the only injury reported in Colquitt County related to the storm.
The firefighter was opening the door to Fire Station 2 on West Boulevard when the wind caught the door and slammed it against his hand.
“It was just a freak accident,” Assistant Fire Chief Lamar Plymel said Tuesday. “In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t bad.”
The fire department said it responded to one vehicle accident and no fires during the storm, which made landfall Sunday in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane but lost strength as it traveled up the west coast of Florida.
Colquitt County Emergency Management Director Russell Moody said some residences and commercial buildings throughout the county had damage, especially shingles torn off roofs. Scores of trees were down, some of them over power lines.
Moody did not have numbers on how many people in the county still lacked electricity, but he said crews were working to bring them back online as fast as possible. That includes crews from Colquitt EMC, Georgia Power, the City of Moultrie and other power companies that came from outside the area to help.
Plymel said most streets in the city of Moultrie are passable. The county issued a list of road closures late Monday, and Moody did not indicate any change in that list Tuesday morning.
A curfew is in place until 1 p.m., but Moody encouraged everyone to stay off the road unless absolutely necessary even after the curfew ends.