ZETA RIPS AND ZIPS

BY BRUCE BRANUM

The Greenville Standard

 

Hurricane Zeta, the 27th named story of the Atlantic hurricane season, came ripping by Butler County in the late evening hours of last Wednesday and wee hours of Thursday morning.

It left trees and power lines down across the county and demanded attention by emergency and highway personnel, law enforcement, and power, phone, and cable utility crews.

Though there was only about an inch of rain from the storm recorded at Mac Crenshaw Memorial Airport in Greenville, there were numerous electrical outages reported by Alabama Power and Pioneer Electric customers.

At the height of the outages, more than 2.6 million homes and businesses across the southeast were without power. Georgia reported over 1 million. Alabama had more than 414,000 and Louisiana reported about 444,000 outages.

More than 300,000 lost power in North Carolina and South Carolina reported more than 125,000 customers without electricity. More than 55,000 outages were reported in Virginia.

Butler County schools were closed Thursday due to the inclement weather and Friday due to the widespread power outages.

Zeta made landfall near Cocodrie, La. around 4 p.m. on Wednesday as a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds.

Zeta was the 11th named storm to make landfall in the U.S. in 2020, beating the record of nine U.S. landfalls in a single year, set in 1916.

As of Friday, the following roads were closed due to downed trees with power lines: Manningham Rd. at Giddens Church; East Dogwood Trail, north of Ashley Road; Ridge Rd. near slide; Hank Williams Rd.; Bolton Rd.; Shows Rd.; and County Rd. 7 at the Wilcox County Line (Mt Moriah).