ATLANTA — Trees down, blocked roads, flash flood emergency warnings - all the after effects of Helene felt and seen in the City of Atlanta.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens held a press conference Friday morning at the Joint Operations Center, addressing any major damages and impacts of now Tropical Storm Helene overnight.
"As you know we've had a very eventful, night and early morning due to Hurricane Helene and we have a flash flood emergency in the City of Atlanta," Dickens said.
While the worst part of the storm has already passed, the city is still experiencing flash flood warnings until about 1 p.m., according to Dickens.
"We're thankful in the city that the storm diverted east that it didn't come as direct over the City of Atlanta," he added, "but we did have a lot of rain over the last couple of days and it resulted in flooding, as well as trees being down."
As crews continue to work on clean up efforts, as well as damage assessments Dickens warned residents to remain cautious and safe across the city.
"We've resulted in some flooding in the Buckhead area, as well as some low-lying areas," he said. "Thankfully some of our other troubled hotspots, normally like the AUC Center, Vine City, English Avenue, [and] Peoplestown - we haven't seen a significant amount of flooding in those areas."
Watch live updates of Helene's aftermath here:
Dickens expressed for people to stay off the roads so emergency crews can get to work.
"You never know what you may encounter, so it's best to be safe," he added later during the press conference. "Also, emergency vehicles need to be able to have clear passage: Georgia Power, out Atlanta Police Department, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department, D.O.T - all of us are out on the roads trying to make sure we get things safe."
Hurricane Helene moved into Georgia overnight but was downgraded to a tropical storm by the early morning hours.
"Our emergency preparedness and emergency management teams have been working around the clock," Dickens said.
Joined by Dickens this morning was Kim Greene, head of Georgia Power.
In addition to numerous road ways impacted and lingering wind gusts across the metro and North Georgia, several residents are still experiencing major power issues and losses.
Just after 8 a.m. Georgia Power reported more than 700,000 customers affected while Georgia EMC listed more than 430,000 customers impacted - more than 1 million customers statewide.
About an hour later, those numbers quickly grew with Georgia Power's figures showing nearly 730,000 customers and Georgia EMC to nearly 460,000 - with most of the customers impacted in the South and Southeast of the state.
Greene said that the company had restored power thousands of others in the last two days.
"Currently, Georgia Power have 40,000 customers without power. Overnight and over the past, 24 to 48 hours, we've actually restored power to over 120,000 customers," she said.
"We do expect the number of outages to continue to rise," she added. "I assure you that we want to get your power back on just as safely and quickly as possible. We have over 1,700 crews out and about restoring power as we speak."