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AUGUSTA, Ga. — The moment Cindy Kuhlke knew something was very wrong was the moment the sound of the baby monitors in her bedroom winked out.
Cindy and her daughter Chesley had tucked Chesley’s two daughters — ages two years and five weeks — in their cribs at 7:00 on the night of Thursday, September 26, 2024, the way they had done every night. There was a storm pulsing outside Chesley’s home near Walton Way Extension in Augusta, not far from Augusta National Golf Club, but that wasn’t unusual; storms roll through Augusta dozens of times a year.
Only … there was something different about this particular storm, the leading edge of a hurricane far to the south. The outer bands of Hurricane Helene had already dumped as much as 10 inches of rain on Augusta in the previous day, as much as the city receives in months. The wind had continued to increase throughout the night. Around 3:00 in the morning, an unearthly noise surrounded their home, and that’s when the power went out.
“I truly can't explain the sounds that I heard,” Cindy says. “I did not know what was happening outside, because it was pitch black dark.” And then, in that moment, Cindy knew: We need to get downstairs.
They gathered the children and took refuge in Chesley’s first-floor bedroom. And then, another flash: Cindy looked at her daughter and said, “Chesley, we need to get out of this bedroom.”
The four of them moved next to the next room over, into the den, and huddled on the couch in the back of the house. By now it was about 5:30 in the morning, and that was when they heard a sound Cindy had never heard before, and never wants to hear again: the horrific crash of a tree falling, carving, tearing its way through their house — through the nursery, through the bedroom where they’d been just minutes before.
“Once the sound stopped, we could hear the rain coming into her bedroom, which was right next to us,” Cindy recalls. “We didn’t know what to do. That’s when I began shaking.”
Hurricane Helene, which had formed in the Gulf of Mexico four days earlier, was the strongest hurricane on record to strike Florida’s Big Bend region — so strong, in fact, that it caught Augusta and other nearby communities unaware. The storm’s projections had it on a track directly over Atlanta, but when Helene reached land — still at Category 4 status — it slid much farther east than expected. That took the path of its more violent eastern wall straight over Augusta, which had no reason to expect it would ever face the threat of a hurricane.
Augusta is more than 120 miles from the Atlantic coast, and more than 300 miles from the Big Bend of Florida. It’s the place where hurricane refugees go to wait out storms. It’s not the place that gets hit with hurricanes itself. But in the early morning hours of September 27, Hurricane Helene barreled into — and over, and through — the city. Gusts of up to 100 miles per hour devastated Augusta, the way they devastated communities in a scar that ran from Florida, through Georgia and South Carolina, and up to the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina.
Cindy and the rest of Augusta awoke Friday morning to an utterly shattered landscape. The heavy rainfall the day before had softened the ground so much that the high winds toppled thousands of trees all over the city. Sweetgum, white oak, pine — all toppled over, massive root balls heaving out of the earth. Some sheared off midway up, their trunks pointing like spears at the now-blue skies.
As anyone who’s watched the Masters knows, Augusta’s tree canopy is one of its signature beauties. Thick, lush stands of trees don’t just enclose the home of the Masters; they decorate the entire city … or they did, before September 27. Helene reduced the city’s tree canopy by anywhere from 10 to 25 percent, depending on the area, and the effect is profound. There’s sunlight where there once was shade. Sound travels further. There’s an openness that feels empty.
In the hours after the storm, however, the people of Augusta didn’t have time to focus on the skyline; they had troubles on the ground. Fallen trees blocked roads all over the area; drives that would have taken 10 minutes the day before now took hours because of all the necessary detours and backups.
“When you woke up the next morning and looked around the city and saw that it wasn’t just one neighborhood, that it was the whole city that was destroyed, it was shock across the city,” says Derek Dugan, Director of Development for the Salvation Army. “There was probably a week or five days of shock. And then it was, roll up your sleeves, let’s get to work.”
“I don’t think the country in general understands the scale of the disaster that we experienced,” says Amy Breitmann, president of Golden Harvest Food Bank. “The storm was 250 miles wide. The devastation was really overwhelming.”
Augusta needed help in all directions. Fortunately, one pathway to aid already existed: the HUB for Community Innovation, a two-building facility designed to offer essential needs to underprivileged and impoverished residents. Built in 2022, the HUB is a joint creation of the Medical College of Georgia Foundation, the Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River area, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Augusta, and was funded by a joint contribution from Augusta National, AT&T, Bank of America and IBM.
Early Friday morning, Ian Mercier, president of the MCG Foundation, received a call from a friend who’s a member of Augusta National and involved with the club’s community impact efforts. “Listen, we have this absolutely horrible situation in Augusta,” the member said. “People have desperate needs … How do we make [the HUB] a beacon of hope? How do we make this a safe haven for folks?”
Augusta National wasn’t the only organization helping with relief efforts, but its resources helped grease some wheels and streamline initiatives that otherwise could have become bogged down in financial needs or turf wars.
“When you have an organization like that, that has national and international reach,” Mercier says, “they can make phone calls and deploy resources in ways that most of us mere mortals can’t.”
“One of the first calls that I made was to Augusta National, because they’ve been incredible partners with us over the years,” Breitmann says. “I told them, we need bags. We’ve got to take emergency food to all of our neighbors. Some were in really desperate shape in some of our rural counties. [Augusta National] came over within an hour with 15,000 bags that they typically use for merch, and continued to supply those bags for several weeks.”
(Courtesy Golden Harvest)
Over the next few days and weeks, Augusta National officials joined in an effort that included the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Golden Harvest Food Bank, the Community Foundation, Augusta University and a range of local churches. As donations flowed in from across the state and across the country, Augusta National officials offered up their logistics center — which handles merchandise during the Masters — as a staging area for distribution.
“Augusta National got on the phone very quickly with vendors across the country and said, ‘Look, we need water, we need food,’” Dugan says. “It was all shipped to them, and then they would distribute it to the agencies that needed it.”
Further in town, The HUB served as a gathering spot for the distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as a gathering place where volunteers could meet and get assignments for the day — delivering medication to shut-in or rural residents, for instance.
“Because Augusta does not have hurricanes hit us, we don't have significant natural disasters, the emergency management agency was not up to snuff,” Dugan says. “So The HUB served essentially as the central point of communications for all agencies. It became a communication center and a distribution center for everybody looking to give help from the communication side, and receive help from the community.”
In the days before FEMA set up at The Hub, about 30,000 individuals came through, receiving everything from vegetables to diapers to dog food to baby formula.
“Augusta National was an active partner. They were not a behind-the-scenes partner as they had traditionally been, where they still provided the same amount of support, but they never wanted the credit,” Dugan says. “They were in the room with us. They were sitting next to us. They were part of the solution and part of the strategy. They were very, very hands-on during this.”
In all, Augusta National and the Community Foundation invested about $10 million into a Hurricane Helene Recovery Fund, money that will help the city and the region get back on its feet after the unexpected devastation.
“I think what I’m the most proud of is the response of our entire organization to that natural disaster,” Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said at the Latin American Championship in January. “And not only what they did to get Augusta National back in shape, but as importantly, how they pitched in with the Augusta community and really helped out.”
The game of golf itself was far from everyone’s mind in those early days. But in the public’s mind, Augusta is synonymous with the Masters, so natural curiosity turned to the state of the club on Washington Road. Augusta National has shown an ability to move trees both in and out of the club with a skill that borders on the magical — trees that fell on the course during the tournament in 2023 were gone without a trace the next day — but Helene posed a far more substantial challenge.
Satellite imagery from Eureka Earth showed the extent of the devastation — pine trees were scattered all over the course, most notably in a line roughly from the 16th hole to the first green.
(Images via Eureka Earth, comparison via The Quadrilateral)
A YouTube short posted soon after the storm showed damage to the legendary trees that line Magnolia Lane.
From a hill in the Sand Hill neighborhood south of Augusta National, the lower-income, primarily minority neighborhood that once was home to most of the club’s Black caddies, the clubhouse — once hidden behind a blanket of trees — is now clearly visible in the distance.
“We have not quite as many trees as we did a year ago,” Ridley said in January. “As far as the golf course goes, it’s in spectacular condition. I think we had minor damage to the course, the playing surfaces themselves, but we were able to get that back in shape, but I don’t think you’re going to see any difference in the condition for the Masters this year.”
Initial reports from players who have visited the course — as well as patrons who attended Saturday’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur — indicate that there’s a noticeable difference in the feel of some sections of the course, but not enough to substantially alter the tournament.
"Behind 11, the Hogan bridge just absolutely pops now when you're playing that second shot with them having lost those couple trees behind the 11th green," 2008 champion Trevor Immelman said recently during a CBS media call. "Behind 15 as well, there's a couple less trees … Then, to the right of the 9th, seemed to be thinned out because of the devastation from the storm.”
"The loss of a few trees is definitely noticeable,” Rory McIlroy said before the Texas Children’s Houston Open. “Maybe a few less shadows on the [16th] green late in the day because of a couple of trees that were lost, but apart from that, it's pretty much the same."
“It almost felt like I was playing the back nine for the first time,” Xander Schauffele said Monday. “When you're walking down 10, you can see half the course … It's sad, too, to see how many trees have fallen.”
Homes throughout Augusta are still haven't recovered from Hurricane Helene. (Yahoo Sports)
Outside the club’s high hedges, the last remnants of the storm are still visible all over the city. Within just a few blocks of Augusta National, blue tarps still cover the roofs of both mansions and ranch homes. Although county governments have engaged in a massive cleanup effort, enormous fallen trees and root balls still dot the landscape. Yards are still scarred, power lines still dangle.
All told, Helene was responsible for 37 deaths and an estimated $6.46 billion in damage, in the state of Georgia alone. Of Georgia’s 159 counties, 93 suffered enough damage that the Federal Emergency Management Agency stepped in to provide federal assistance. Georgia’s Emergency Management Agency estimates that Helene produced as much as 50 million cubic yards of vegetative debris, enough to fill Mercedes-Benz Stadium 44 times. The storm’s entire toll included 250 deaths and $78.7 billion in damage.
“What we're seeing is that many people, some for the first time, are turning towards the charitable food system for assistance,” Breitmann says. “When you've got to absorb the cost of repairs on your home or loss of your car … those kind of financial blows are very long-lasting for families.”
Augusta will take years to return to anything approaching normalcy. But this week is a sign that the community can celebrate the event for which it’s famous.
“I do think that devastation and tragedy like this does bring communities together,” Cindy says. “We can survive it, and we can come back.”
Continue reading...
Cindy and her daughter Chesley had tucked Chesley’s two daughters — ages two years and five weeks — in their cribs at 7:00 on the night of Thursday, September 26, 2024, the way they had done every night. There was a storm pulsing outside Chesley’s home near Walton Way Extension in Augusta, not far from Augusta National Golf Club, but that wasn’t unusual; storms roll through Augusta dozens of times a year.
Only … there was something different about this particular storm, the leading edge of a hurricane far to the south. The outer bands of Hurricane Helene had already dumped as much as 10 inches of rain on Augusta in the previous day, as much as the city receives in months. The wind had continued to increase throughout the night. Around 3:00 in the morning, an unearthly noise surrounded their home, and that’s when the power went out.
“I truly can't explain the sounds that I heard,” Cindy says. “I did not know what was happening outside, because it was pitch black dark.” And then, in that moment, Cindy knew: We need to get downstairs.
They gathered the children and took refuge in Chesley’s first-floor bedroom. And then, another flash: Cindy looked at her daughter and said, “Chesley, we need to get out of this bedroom.”
The four of them moved next to the next room over, into the den, and huddled on the couch in the back of the house. By now it was about 5:30 in the morning, and that was when they heard a sound Cindy had never heard before, and never wants to hear again: the horrific crash of a tree falling, carving, tearing its way through their house — through the nursery, through the bedroom where they’d been just minutes before.
“Once the sound stopped, we could hear the rain coming into her bedroom, which was right next to us,” Cindy recalls. “We didn’t know what to do. That’s when I began shaking.”
Hurricane Helene, which had formed in the Gulf of Mexico four days earlier, was the strongest hurricane on record to strike Florida’s Big Bend region — so strong, in fact, that it caught Augusta and other nearby communities unaware. The storm’s projections had it on a track directly over Atlanta, but when Helene reached land — still at Category 4 status — it slid much farther east than expected. That took the path of its more violent eastern wall straight over Augusta, which had no reason to expect it would ever face the threat of a hurricane.
Augusta is more than 120 miles from the Atlantic coast, and more than 300 miles from the Big Bend of Florida. It’s the place where hurricane refugees go to wait out storms. It’s not the place that gets hit with hurricanes itself. But in the early morning hours of September 27, Hurricane Helene barreled into — and over, and through — the city. Gusts of up to 100 miles per hour devastated Augusta, the way they devastated communities in a scar that ran from Florida, through Georgia and South Carolina, and up to the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina.
Cindy and the rest of Augusta awoke Friday morning to an utterly shattered landscape. The heavy rainfall the day before had softened the ground so much that the high winds toppled thousands of trees all over the city. Sweetgum, white oak, pine — all toppled over, massive root balls heaving out of the earth. Some sheared off midway up, their trunks pointing like spears at the now-blue skies.
As anyone who’s watched the Masters knows, Augusta’s tree canopy is one of its signature beauties. Thick, lush stands of trees don’t just enclose the home of the Masters; they decorate the entire city … or they did, before September 27. Helene reduced the city’s tree canopy by anywhere from 10 to 25 percent, depending on the area, and the effect is profound. There’s sunlight where there once was shade. Sound travels further. There’s an openness that feels empty.
In the hours after the storm, however, the people of Augusta didn’t have time to focus on the skyline; they had troubles on the ground. Fallen trees blocked roads all over the area; drives that would have taken 10 minutes the day before now took hours because of all the necessary detours and backups.
“When you woke up the next morning and looked around the city and saw that it wasn’t just one neighborhood, that it was the whole city that was destroyed, it was shock across the city,” says Derek Dugan, Director of Development for the Salvation Army. “There was probably a week or five days of shock. And then it was, roll up your sleeves, let’s get to work.”
“I don’t think the country in general understands the scale of the disaster that we experienced,” says Amy Breitmann, president of Golden Harvest Food Bank. “The storm was 250 miles wide. The devastation was really overwhelming.”
Augusta needed help in all directions. Fortunately, one pathway to aid already existed: the HUB for Community Innovation, a two-building facility designed to offer essential needs to underprivileged and impoverished residents. Built in 2022, the HUB is a joint creation of the Medical College of Georgia Foundation, the Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River area, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Augusta, and was funded by a joint contribution from Augusta National, AT&T, Bank of America and IBM.
Early Friday morning, Ian Mercier, president of the MCG Foundation, received a call from a friend who’s a member of Augusta National and involved with the club’s community impact efforts. “Listen, we have this absolutely horrible situation in Augusta,” the member said. “People have desperate needs … How do we make [the HUB] a beacon of hope? How do we make this a safe haven for folks?”
Augusta National wasn’t the only organization helping with relief efforts, but its resources helped grease some wheels and streamline initiatives that otherwise could have become bogged down in financial needs or turf wars.
“When you have an organization like that, that has national and international reach,” Mercier says, “they can make phone calls and deploy resources in ways that most of us mere mortals can’t.”
“One of the first calls that I made was to Augusta National, because they’ve been incredible partners with us over the years,” Breitmann says. “I told them, we need bags. We’ve got to take emergency food to all of our neighbors. Some were in really desperate shape in some of our rural counties. [Augusta National] came over within an hour with 15,000 bags that they typically use for merch, and continued to supply those bags for several weeks.”
You must be registered for see images
(Courtesy Golden Harvest)
Over the next few days and weeks, Augusta National officials joined in an effort that included the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Golden Harvest Food Bank, the Community Foundation, Augusta University and a range of local churches. As donations flowed in from across the state and across the country, Augusta National officials offered up their logistics center — which handles merchandise during the Masters — as a staging area for distribution.
“Augusta National got on the phone very quickly with vendors across the country and said, ‘Look, we need water, we need food,’” Dugan says. “It was all shipped to them, and then they would distribute it to the agencies that needed it.”
Further in town, The HUB served as a gathering spot for the distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as a gathering place where volunteers could meet and get assignments for the day — delivering medication to shut-in or rural residents, for instance.
“Because Augusta does not have hurricanes hit us, we don't have significant natural disasters, the emergency management agency was not up to snuff,” Dugan says. “So The HUB served essentially as the central point of communications for all agencies. It became a communication center and a distribution center for everybody looking to give help from the communication side, and receive help from the community.”
In the days before FEMA set up at The Hub, about 30,000 individuals came through, receiving everything from vegetables to diapers to dog food to baby formula.
“Augusta National was an active partner. They were not a behind-the-scenes partner as they had traditionally been, where they still provided the same amount of support, but they never wanted the credit,” Dugan says. “They were in the room with us. They were sitting next to us. They were part of the solution and part of the strategy. They were very, very hands-on during this.”
In all, Augusta National and the Community Foundation invested about $10 million into a Hurricane Helene Recovery Fund, money that will help the city and the region get back on its feet after the unexpected devastation.
“I think what I’m the most proud of is the response of our entire organization to that natural disaster,” Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said at the Latin American Championship in January. “And not only what they did to get Augusta National back in shape, but as importantly, how they pitched in with the Augusta community and really helped out.”
The game of golf itself was far from everyone’s mind in those early days. But in the public’s mind, Augusta is synonymous with the Masters, so natural curiosity turned to the state of the club on Washington Road. Augusta National has shown an ability to move trees both in and out of the club with a skill that borders on the magical — trees that fell on the course during the tournament in 2023 were gone without a trace the next day — but Helene posed a far more substantial challenge.
Satellite imagery from Eureka Earth showed the extent of the devastation — pine trees were scattered all over the course, most notably in a line roughly from the 16th hole to the first green.
You must be registered for see images attach
(Images via Eureka Earth, comparison via The Quadrilateral)
A YouTube short posted soon after the storm showed damage to the legendary trees that line Magnolia Lane.
From a hill in the Sand Hill neighborhood south of Augusta National, the lower-income, primarily minority neighborhood that once was home to most of the club’s Black caddies, the clubhouse — once hidden behind a blanket of trees — is now clearly visible in the distance.
“We have not quite as many trees as we did a year ago,” Ridley said in January. “As far as the golf course goes, it’s in spectacular condition. I think we had minor damage to the course, the playing surfaces themselves, but we were able to get that back in shape, but I don’t think you’re going to see any difference in the condition for the Masters this year.”
Initial reports from players who have visited the course — as well as patrons who attended Saturday’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur — indicate that there’s a noticeable difference in the feel of some sections of the course, but not enough to substantially alter the tournament.
"Behind 11, the Hogan bridge just absolutely pops now when you're playing that second shot with them having lost those couple trees behind the 11th green," 2008 champion Trevor Immelman said recently during a CBS media call. "Behind 15 as well, there's a couple less trees … Then, to the right of the 9th, seemed to be thinned out because of the devastation from the storm.”
"The loss of a few trees is definitely noticeable,” Rory McIlroy said before the Texas Children’s Houston Open. “Maybe a few less shadows on the [16th] green late in the day because of a couple of trees that were lost, but apart from that, it's pretty much the same."
“It almost felt like I was playing the back nine for the first time,” Xander Schauffele said Monday. “When you're walking down 10, you can see half the course … It's sad, too, to see how many trees have fallen.”
You must be registered for see images
Homes throughout Augusta are still haven't recovered from Hurricane Helene. (Yahoo Sports)
Outside the club’s high hedges, the last remnants of the storm are still visible all over the city. Within just a few blocks of Augusta National, blue tarps still cover the roofs of both mansions and ranch homes. Although county governments have engaged in a massive cleanup effort, enormous fallen trees and root balls still dot the landscape. Yards are still scarred, power lines still dangle.
All told, Helene was responsible for 37 deaths and an estimated $6.46 billion in damage, in the state of Georgia alone. Of Georgia’s 159 counties, 93 suffered enough damage that the Federal Emergency Management Agency stepped in to provide federal assistance. Georgia’s Emergency Management Agency estimates that Helene produced as much as 50 million cubic yards of vegetative debris, enough to fill Mercedes-Benz Stadium 44 times. The storm’s entire toll included 250 deaths and $78.7 billion in damage.
“What we're seeing is that many people, some for the first time, are turning towards the charitable food system for assistance,” Breitmann says. “When you've got to absorb the cost of repairs on your home or loss of your car … those kind of financial blows are very long-lasting for families.”
Augusta will take years to return to anything approaching normalcy. But this week is a sign that the community can celebrate the event for which it’s famous.
“I do think that devastation and tragedy like this does bring communities together,” Cindy says. “We can survive it, and we can come back.”
Continue reading...
