The remnants of Hurricane Irma forced Atlanta’s international airport — one of the world’s busiest — to cancel nearly 200 flights early Tuesday. The storm claimed at least two lives in Georgia and one in South Carolina.
The flights canceled at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport put the total number of interrupted trips there due to Irma at about 1,300, spokesman Andrew Gobeil said. The airport remained operational, although some passengers were forced to spend the night at the airport. Gobeil said he didn’t have the exact number.
Meteorologist Keith Stellman said Atlanta’s airport recorded sustained winds of 45 mph with gusts up to 64 mph. The National Hurricane Center said it expects Irma to drop 5 inches to 8 inches of rain across South Carolina and the northern regions of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi through Tuesday.
More than 1.2 million Georgia Power and Electric Membership Corp. customers were without power Tuesday morning. The utility companies said they would continue to assess damage as power is restored. The Alabama Power reported 20,000 outages. The utilities said repairs could take several days.
In Atlanta, people nervously watched towering oak trees as the city, 250 miles inland, experienced its first tropical storm warning.
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority resumed service Tuesday, but with limited routes. The transport operator said it will have rail service running in 20-minute intervals.
Weakened into a tropical depression after strafing Florida, Irma still had enough force when it swirled into Georgia to cause significant damage.
Heavy rain and strong winds caused flooding along the coast, downed power lines and sent trees crashing onto homes. Traffic flowed easily on Atlanta’s main highways Tuesday that are usually crammed with traffic during rush hours. Schools remained closed.
In South Georgia, a 62-year-old man had a heart attack and died after climbing a ladder to try to secure the roof above his tractor-trailer.
John Kline was found under debris on the roof of his shed in Worth County, where winds topped 40 mph, sheriff’s spokeswoman Kannetha Clem said. His wife had called 911, saying he’d had a heart attack.
County Coroner John Johnson said Kline suffered from chronic heart disease and believes the man’s death was not storm-related.
Another man, in his 50s, was killed just outside Atlanta when a tree fell on his house, Sandy Springs police Sgt. Sam Worsham said. In addition, a woman died when a tree fell on a vehicle in a private driveway, the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office said on its website.
Some 540,000 people were ordered to evacuate days earlier from Savannah and the rest of Georgia’s coast. Irma sent 4 feet of ocean water into downtown Charleston, South Carolina, as the storm’s center passed 250 miles away. City officials urged residents to stay off the streets.
Charles Saxon, 57, became South Carolina’s first recorded death when he was struck by a tree limb while clearing debris outside his home in Calhoun Falls amid wind gusts of about 40 mph, according to a statement from Abbeville County Coroner Ronnie Ashley. Another man was killed in a wreck on a wet and windy interstate as Irma moved past. Public Safety Director Leroy Smith said 21-year-old Zhen Tain died in the crash on Interstate 77 just east of Columbia.
Sumter County Coroner Robert Baker Jr. said 54-year-old William McBride was pronounced dead Tuesday of carbon monoxide poisoning. Baker said McBride had been running a generator inside his mobile home for at least several hours, with only a single window cracked for ventilation.
Communities along Georgia’s coast were swamped by storm surge and rainfall arriving at high tide Monday afternoon. On Tybee Island east of Savannah, Holland Zellers was grabbing a kayak to reach his mother in a home near the beach.
“In the street right now, the water is knee-to-waist deep,” Zellers said.
Tybee Island City Manager Shawn Gillen said waters were receding quickly, but many of the 3,000 residents’ homes were flooded.
“I don’t think people who have lived here a long time have ever seen flooding this bad,” Gillen said.
The tidal surge sent damaged boats rushing more than three blocks onto downtown streets in St. Marys, just north of the Georgia-Florida state line, St. Marys Police Lt. Shannon Brock said.
Downtown Atlanta hotels remained full of evacuees. Many milled about the CNN Center, escaping crowded hotel rooms in search of open restaurants. Many were glued to storm coverage on the atrium’s big screen. Parents pointed out familiar sites, now damaged, to their children.
“We’ve been here since Friday night, and we’re ready to go home” to Palm Beach County, Florida, Marilyn Torrence told her 4-year-old.
Editor’s note: Three Georgia deaths were linked to the storm in an earlier version of this Associated Press report. However, a coroner has said a South Georgia man who died suffered from chronic heart disease and that he didn’t believe his death was storm-related.
