North Augusta Helene recovery efforts in the home stretch as 2025 hurricane season begins

Yahoo

a day ago

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. (WJBF) – This week marks the start of the 2025 Hurricane season, stretching between now and the end of November.
But, many in our area are still recovering from Hurricane Helene more than 8 months after making its mark.
North Augusta and Aiken County were one of the hardest hit areas by Helene in the Palmetto State.
But, city leaders say storm cleanup is in the home stretch.
Neighbors in South Carolina's Riverfront are still recalling one of the worst storms they've ever seen.
'I'm from California. We moved here 4 years ago, and I'll take an earthquake over a hurricane any day. It's totally different down here. The devastation was crazy,' said Steven Tognotti.
Tognotti says since then, the community has worked together to get back on their feet.
'It was crazy, the community just pulled together like crazy. Everybody was trying to help each other—which was awesome,' Tognotti said.
City leaders have also been working to finish debris pickup for good.
Mayor Briton Williams says improvements have been made at nearby parks that suffered damage, including Creighton Park.
'Creighton Park already had equipment that quite frankly was outdated, so with the hurricane an upgrade was definitely overdue,' said Williams. 'We'll have a ribbon cutting for the new park on June 17th at 11 A.M.'
The structure at Maude Edenfield Park was completely destroyed, where cultural arts events typically take place in the summer.
'That is being worked on now,' Williams said. 'We don't have a timeframe of when that will be rebuilt, but the cultural arts folks will have all their concerts this summer inside the community center there.'
Part of Boeckh Park also remains closed due to damage on the dock.
The mayor says that's another project the city is working on.
'When we brought engineers there, we found that the problem is the concrete. It's actually not stable underneath, so because of that we've had to block it off. We don't have any kind of timeline with that one, but we are working on that.'
The city has also just passed a resolution to hire a company to fix damaged fences and storm drains by the end of June.
While those projects are on the to-do list, Williams says one of the biggest challenges for storm cleanup has been the roads.
'When you have DOT owning roads, we own roads, the county owns roads—that has probably been the most challenging aspect of managing it. Unfortunately, the people that have gotten hurt by that are our citizens,' the mayor said.
The next step is to mulch remaining debris at their two debris sites, and haul them off by the end of the month.
While there's still work to do, they've learned a lot since last September.
'Even though I feel like we've done a lot, maybe we could have done more communication on that. But, we didn't leave many stones unturned—I truly believe that,' said Williams. 'Have we strived hard to communicate, and have our employees done an incredible job? Yes—especially considering the fact that none of us expected this, and none of us could have prepared for this.'
This week, the city has also resuming full-service yard pickup.
They say all garbage, recycling, and yard waste must be separated by the homeowner, and placed curbside by 7:00 a.m. on the scheduled collection day.
Yard waste needs to be placed behind the curb in neatly separated piles.
For more do's and don'ts for yard pickup, click here.
The mayor says their goal is to finish cleanup by the FEMA reimbursement deadline on July 1st.
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