It would be more than fair to say that a majority of us did not expect this.

Days after Hurricane Helene roared through our area, a significant swath of residents and businesses remain powerless. Powerless to turn on a light in dark room. Powerless to stay cool during an uncomfortably muggy weekend and most importantly, powerless to really do anything about any of it.

To some it is the most frustrating of inconveniences. To those who have lost the inventory at their restaurant or even their place to live, it is catastrophic.

And I don’t think any of us really saw it coming.

Early last week, the Savannah area prepared for another couple of ‘storm days.’ We’d been here many times before. Every Hurricane season. A storm bubbles up somewhere and begins to head our way. Municipalities and area school systems begin preparations for inclement weather. Offices close. Schools close and life as we know it around here slows to a crawl for a day or two before we get back to something resembling normal.

We’ve been here many times the last few years. We were here 3 or so short weeks ago when Tropical Storm Debby rolled through. We all prepared to do it again. Every Hurricane season has brought us 1 or 2 such instances. We’ve gotten used to it. Once it’s gone, there’s a quick clean up and we resume regularly scheduled programming.

Helene, however, was different. And it didn’t take long at all to realize that.

Yes, Helene was a category 4 storm by the time it came ashore almost literally a sliver East of Tallahassee, Florida. Yes, that meant the entire region was in great danger. It also meant- as the path was laid out- that Central and Southwest Georgia were in trouble. The hurricane force winds were expected to hang around all the way up through Atlanta. We were going to get some effects around here, of course we were, but I’m not sure how many of us expected this.

If you judged by the conversations happening overnight on Facebook Thursday night, those of us that were awake were terrified. The roar of Helene’s fury wasn’t anything we had felt since Hurricane Matthew scraped us in 2016. That was different in that we all watched Matthew approach the region from the Atlantic. Helene was one of these-for lack of a better description-back door storms that enters the area from Florida, giving it plenty of opportunity to weaken before it reaches us a few hours later.

From my own perspective, I woke up to violent winds outside my bedroom window about 1:30am Friday morning and never really felt comfortable falling back to sleep again. What I was hearing sounded much closer to Hurricane Andrew (which I sat through wide awake in 1992) than it did another tropical disturbance induced rainy night in Savannah. I won’t lie, I was concerned. And so was everyone on my Facebook feed. All night long. For hours.

One of my friends posted: “This is a monster.” A lot of people would agree and a lot of people would have disagreed. Though listening to those tornado sirens deep into the night was a bit unsettling.

About 3am came word that Savannah Fire and Police had responded to a structure collapse on Broughton Street. This was bad all the way around and all we could do was sit and wait to see how bad it would be.

By Friday morning, about 9am, my wife and I headed out for a neighborhood assessing walk about. We helped a neighbor pile downed branches on a street corner and even cleared off a swath of sidewalk in Forsyth Park. The neighborhood was a mess, but it was nothing really that we hadn’t seen before. City workers were out in force beginning the clean up.

Save for the building that collapsed on the 200 Block of West Broughton, Downtown Savannah appeared to be business somewhat was usual. It was early, yes, but several outdoor cafes were full of customers. There were lines for coffee anywhere you could get one. It all looked good from our perspective.

Only to find out that Savannah was really living out a tale of two cities.

From a restaurant perspective, Downtown Savannah largely fared well. By Friday afternoon dozens of eateries had returned to service. The Ordinary Pub, which exists in the basement of the collapsed building on Broughton Street is closed for the time being. You can read more about that here.

But the farther out you got from Downtown, the more we realized this was a very different reality. How many people were without power? How many businesses were losing inventory in their freezers? How many business owners were scrambling to salvage a day’s revenue however they could?

Those with food trucks did better than those that don’t. Just park out front, then cook and sell whatever you can out of the truck.

I checked in on Desposito’s Seafood in Thunderbolt Friday afternoon, they were in a ‘panic’ trying to save whatever they could from their freezers. “I’m exhausted.” I was told. I’m guessing they hadn’t slept much the night before either.

Bill Vissichio, owner of Rocky’s of Savannah NY Deli in Sandfly sent me a couple of photos of a counter full of the meats and cheeses that Greater Savannah has come to love so much.

“This is about half.” he said. “Gone.”

The Wyld Dock Bar not only had no power, but a downed tree laying across the road in.

Other businesses quietly shared their inability to open due to a lack of power all day Friday. Restaurants like Brochu’s Family Tradition were trying to salvage Friday dinner service without success. This is to say nothing about the thousands of residents that were sitting at home with no power to prepare a real meal for themselves or their families. By midday Saturday, Publix was a nightmare to navigate as locals tried to-almost literally-figure out where their next meal was coming from.

Lost in all of this, and why I chose to share this space with you, are the area restaurants that are in panic mode right now. By most accounts, the Summer season was brutal across the area. It hasn’t been uncommon to hear some places were down 20-30% from last year. The last thing these businesses needed was to shut down for a week because a storm was a lot worse than we thought it would be. Closed restaurants means no sales. Closed restaurants means no jobs for those employees. Everybody loses.

Insurance, you say? It depends on a particular policy, of course, but a lot of companies won’t pay to replace inventory unless the storm did structural damage to the building. Lost power doesn’t damage anything. That’s why a lot of eateries like Vincenzo’s Pizza on the Southside and Bandana Burgers in Habersham Village resorted to cooking their food and giving it away to any customers who were able to stop by. Yes, for free.

Use it or lose it.

Still, as I write this, we aren’t done yet. A lot of people were informed by Georgia Power Saturday night that they will be without service for another few days. That includes someone’s home, of course. But that also includes businesses and area schools. Let’s hope Georgia Power over delivers.

Rocky’s Deli is hoping to re-open on Tuesday. If he does, I know where I’ll be having lunch. But that is no guarantee as of yet.

This is a mess. I think I can say an unexpected mess. Certainly the size of it. If you’ll indulge me a moment of finger wagging, this is why public officials always prepare for the worst in the face of these situations. If the worst doesn’t happen, at least we were prepared. We do what we can, then clean up and move on. But it is clear this is going to take a minute.

There was a lot of frustration across the area on Saturday that so many of us were still without power. That comes with it.

But lets just remember that no matter how bad it might be for you right now, there is someone out there that has it a lot worse than you. If you need a point of reference, look up some video from Asheville or Boone, North Carolina this weekend.

Lets please try to eat local as often as you can as we enter this week. We can all do a little and help some of our small businesses to get back on track.

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