The six months following Hurricane Helene

EVANS COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - Many communities are just starting to see the progress of being rebuilt after six long months of recovery from Hurricane Helene.

Life is back in full swing in many communities following Hurricane Helene.

However, the past six months have been a long recovery process for many rural communities.

Some places like Evans County, have just completed the debris removal cleanup this month. The counties EMA Director Justin Denton says that considering where they started, that is a huge accomplishment.

“Every road in Evans County had a tree and a power line down on it somewhere. It was a lot of debris,” says Denton.

The Jeff Davis EMA Director says 200 cubic yards of debris have been collected and they still have more to go.

He also says they are looking into funding for massive generators for essential buildings like the hospital.

For Evans, Denton says the biggest lesson from Helene was on how to better prepare the community for a storm.

“It changed us for the better in some ways. We now know our shortfalls and we can mitigate those problems moving forward. But for the worst... the community. A lot of our people lost a lot, lost everything. Lost their homes, and they are either going to have to completely rebuild or move somewhere else.”

Denton also says that due to the timing of Helene, it further prolonged the process of fixing road and bridge damage done by Tropical Storm Debby.

“Mostly all road, culvert infrastructure and we have several of them throughout the county. I don’t have the number right off the top of my head but it’s probably about 40 different projects,” said Denton.

Other counties like Bulloch, are facing the same dilemma of extensive road damage from Debby being postponed due to the extremely long debris removal process.

Even though officials say most work done will be covered by FEMA, Helene has cost these rural counties millions upon millions of dollars.

For Bulloch, over $30 million have been spent on the recovery process from Hurricane Idalia to Helene.

In Jeff Davis, officials say they have started a foundation to take donations and put them into local homes and businesses still damaged.