As Statesboro and Bulloch County continue to recover from the devastating effects from Hurricane Helene, government officials with Statesboro, Bulloch County, Bulloch County Schools and both utility companies held a press conference Sunday to offer thanks to the community and an update in restoring services at every level.

“I know we are bruised and weary, but we will make it through this,” Statesboro Mayor Jonathan McCollar said. “I want to ask residents to remain patient during this time. Hurricane Helene was an unprecedented storm, but I'm encouraged by the unprecedented work I’ve seen in getting us back on our feet as quickly as possible.”

Here is a rundown of updates given at Sunday’s press conference:

Power outages

As tens of thousands of Bulloch County residents just completed their third full day without power, a Georgia Power spokesman said the estimated restoration time – ERT – for all Statesboro-area customers is “Thursday at 10 p.m.,” while Excelsior EMC gave a seven to 10-day timeframe for full restoration.

“Excelsior EMC was hit extremely hard during Hurricane Helene,” said Greg Proctor, president and CEO of Excelsior. “100% of our 25,451 consumers were without power after the storm passed. We had staged crews ahead of the storm in our area, but the path and the intensity of the storm was unexpected.”

Excelsior serves customers in Bulloch, Bryan, Candler, Effingham, Evans, Emanuel, Jenkins and Tattnall counties.

“We restored the lower 4,100 consumers or 16% of our system on Friday and we restored an additional 1800 or about 7% of our system Saturday.”

He said 406 workers among 43 repair crews were in the field working Sunday. So far, the crews have identified 200 broken poles and estimate the total number will exceed 300.

“We're estimating that restoration could take seven to 10 days,” Proctor said. “We continue to find roads that are blocked and a tremendous amount of vegetation slower in our restoration efforts.”

Georgia Power’s Joel Hanner was blunt in his assessment of Hurricane Helene.

“This has been the worst weather event we've seen in the history of Georgia Power,” he said.

In Bulloch County, 19,153 customers were without power after Helene passed. As of 5 p.m. Sunday, 9,225 customers were still without power.

“We had some smart grid systems that came into play that got some customer back on pretty quickly,” Hanner said. “But, again, this is the most destructive hurricane in the history of our system. So, we're continuing assessment and restoration.

“The company continues to restore customers with staging areas in all affected parts of the state. We have over 300 crews right now, that have been assigned to the hardest hit areas. And we have mobilized crews from over 35 companies across 11 states.”

Hanner said the damage assessment from Helene is ongoing and crews must wait for roads to be cleared of downed trees before they can begin restoring service.

“The area-wide estimated restoration time is going to be projected Thursday at 10 p.m.,” he said. “And as we make our way through the restoration process, we'll start to give more accurate times to customers.”

Bulloch County Schools

After being closed a half-day Thursday and a full day Friday, Bulloch County Schools Superintendent Charles Wilson said all schools would remain closed through at least Tuesday.

“There are a lot of questions about when we might be able to restart school,” Wilson said. “We are always going to try and push forward. We're in the business of public education. Getting our students back in school is always going to be a priority for us.”

Wilson said of the district’s three high schools, three middle schools and nine elementary schools, only Langston Chapel Elementary suffered significant physical damage from Helene.

“There was some wind damage on the ends of each of the wings that pushed the roof back,” Wilson said. “It's not going to be a quick fix. We've been in touch with the insurance companies, and we've already looked at ways to relocate students within the school building to continue with school.”

Power has not been restored yet at all of the schools and some food was lost when generators failed and a few schools, Wilson said. He said most food was transferred to other schools and saved.

Wilson also addressed the issue of students already missing so many days of school due to the effects of Tropical Storm Debby in August.

“We've already lost five or six days of school prior to this with the weather we had a couple of months ago,” Wilson said. “We're looking at losing two more. We can be faced with losing a whole week. That's a lot of time to put our students behind. Of course, safety is first, but education is the business we're in.”

Road clearing, debris removal

Dink Butler, director of Public Works for Bulloch County, said the primary issues crews face now are trees wrapped in power lines across both paved and dirt roads.

“We stay in communication with (Georgia Power and Excelsior EMC) and as soon as they remove those lines or de -energize those lines, we will be able to move those trees off the right away or off the roads,” he said.

Butler said the process of moving trees off paved roads takes less time than most dirt roads.

“We may be as much as 10 days, two weeks out, especially on dirt roads, getting some of those roads passable again and get the debris removed,” he said.

Also, the debris the public is hauling is beginning to overwhelm the county’s collection sites. To handle the large volume of debris, Butler said that beginning Monday, the sites will close for a few hours each day, so the county can go in and take away the debris.

“We'll be randomly closing our collection sites to allow us to go in there and work and clean those centers out in a safe manner for us and the public,” he said. “If you run into that inconvenience, we apologize for it, but it's in the best safety interest for everybody.”

City waste collection

McCollar said the city’s Residential Waste Collection trucks would resume pick-ups Monday and stick to their regular schedule all week.

“We're asking (city residents) to bring your polycarts to the corners of the street, as well as your debris,” McCollar said. “We recognize that we're going continue our regular pickups, but we want to also begin the process of picking up the debris from within our community.”

McCollar said the debris pick-up would be an ongoing process and he estimated it would take several weeks to complete.

Public Safety

Sheriff Noel Brown said he was asking all residents to be “patient” and “kind” on the roads, in their homes and in the community.

“The good lord tells me to just be calm and be respectful of others during times like this,” Brown said. “It's hard. everybody feels like their problem is the most important at the time. We have neighbors who are coming in from other counties because they don't have any resources. Try to understand that and be kind. Be patient, be kind and love one another.”

Bulloch County EMA director Corey Kemp said the 911 center has received more than 2,000 calls since Friday. EMS has gone on about 150 calls and there have been more than 200 fire calls.

Bulloch County Fire Chief Ben Tapley urged residents to be particularly mindful of their use of generators.

“Please, remember to never operate a generator inside your house,” Tapley said. “Try to have them at least 10 feet away from your home. Make sure you cut the generator off when you are refueling.”

Tapley said one resident suffered severe burns and had to be taken to the burn center in Augusta due to a generator incident and a couple in Portal had a generator inside “explode” and cause a fire that took out most of their house.

Tapley again reminded residents that intersections where traffic signals are not operating should be treated like four-way stops. He said they have responded to a number of accidents at these intersections.

Also, he reminded residents to stay from any power lines they see wrapped in trees on their property.

“We have to assume that it is live and even on your own property,” he said. “You don't need to be messing with any down trees that have power lines in them.”

Public services available

● Pittman Park United Methodist Church Pastor Jonathan Smith said the church on Fair Road would be open Monday from 1-7 p.m. “for people to shower, refresh and recharge.” A community meal would be served to the public at 5 p.m. at the church.

● Kemp said a large distribution of food is expected to take place Monday or Tuesday at the new Food Bank location off Northside Drive, just east of Food World. He said to check the EMA’s Facebook page for more details and the exact time.

● Don Poe with Feed the Boro said the group’s monthly food drop would go on as scheduled at 8 a.m. Saturday at Statesboro High.

Folks can pick up a food box that will contain 25 pounds of staple food items in bags, cartons and cans. Fresh produce items, which vary with what Second Harvest has on hand, are provided in addition to the box, which is meant to be enough to feed a family of four two meals a day for one week.

● Splash in the Boro is opening twice a day to the public for showers – 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4-8 p.m. Dadrian Crosby with Bulloch County Recreation and Parks said the service would be available “until all power is restored.”

● The City of Statesboro Public Utility facility at 36 Hill St. is open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday for anyone to come get drinking water.

“This is a long-term event,” said Dwayne Grice with Bulloch County VOAD. “Many people in our community are without power, possibly up to 10 days or longer. We don't have a magic button and we don't have all the resources. But what we do have is a community that loves each other. And as we live the message that we are Bulloch strong, we're stronger together.”