HThe Orient Hélène touched earth in the early hours of Friday September 27 in Big Bend, Florida. The meteorologists of the National Hurricane Center watched him for a week, when he moved away from Nicaragua, passing in front of Grand Cayman, Cancún and Cuba, and the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, said a state of emergency on Tuesday afternoon.
“The current forecasts for Hurricane Helene suggest that this storm will have an impact on each part of our state,” said Kemp, but in Augusta, east of the state, people felt safe, they had not had a hurricane here for almost 100 years, and it had to pass it.
Until he’s giving a north-north-east and starting to speed up. He hit the city a hundred miles an hour, the anemometers of Augusta airport stopped working at 82 mph, just at the time when the power dropped. “Augusta ended up sitting under the worst absolute part of the storm,” reported the National Weather Service. It was not only the wind – more than 12 inches of rain, a value of the whole winter, fell into the space of a few hours. People talk about how pop-and-flash of the electric lines that lowered the sky illuminates.
When it was finished, more than 30 people died in the city and in the surrounding counties, 11 people were killed by featured trees, which crushed cars, trailers and houses, and much more heart and respiratory failure during the power failure that followed, often because their medical equipment could not work, 362 houses were destroyed, more than 3,000 were described as ” major ”.
Six months later, the city is still recovering. The authorities had to cross nearly 3 cubic meters of debris from the city streets, and the work still takes place in the suburbs, in particular by Tobacco Road. In the streets around the national Augusta, the fences are tooth of deviation, the panels cracked and scattered, and the giant root balls, torn from the ground, crouching on front lawns like the dust balls in Brobdagien, many houses are always under the financing of Tarpaulins, the whole process was slowed down by the decision of the Federal Management financing in February in February.
Over the past years, Augusta has often seemed ambivalent about the National Golf Club, which is on the hill right outside the center. But it was happy to have it now. In the days immediately after the hurricane, the club pumped money in the city, culminating in a donation of $ 5 million with local aid. The president, Fred Ridley, has done a good job to improve relations with the local community. His big announcement this year concerned the redevelopment of the municipal golf course, the patch and the creation of a new community education center, both in partnership with Tiger Woods.
“I am very proud of the way our organization interrupted the Augusta community and I really helped because there were a lot, many people, many of our people were out of their house for several weeks,” said Ridley. “No electricity, no water for a while.”
People remember who was there when the city needed help, which local restaurants were those that started to distribute free hot meals and which stores were those that set up the prices of the essential elements necessary. Ridley made sure that Augusta National played his role, and he was rewarded for this with a good will renewed this spring, while most of the inhabitants are happy to find him.
There is a striking contrast with the reaction of the club after the ice storm which struck the city in 2014, when the greatest concern was how the 17th was going to play after the Eisenhower tree fell.
After promoting the newsletter
The course has lost much more this year, most of them large lobolly pines that have classified everything from the outside world, and divided the fairways from each other. Stay outside the clubhouse now and you can see up to the 15th green, and the 11th Tee box, you can even see until Augusta Country Club next door. Even Gary Player, who has come here since the best part of 70 years, does not remember the last time it was possible. Their supposition is that at least a few hundred fell trees had to be withdrawn from the property. They put a lot of new ones, but they are still growing.
This means that the course will play a little differently this year.
“There are a few starting strokes that may be a little less intimidating visually now,” said Rory Mcilroy. On the 10th, for example, players tend to shoot for the camera tower at the bottom of the hill. “You couldn’t see it, but now you can see it quite clearly, which means visually, it seems that you don’t have to turn the ball as much as before.” On the 3rd, there is more place on the right side, “where some overhanging trees are no longer there.” It can even open a few shots. “I heard a few things. Someone told me that you could hit a high cut on the cabins out of 10,” said Jon Rahm. “I don’t think so.”
You notice it on the first, the opening shot goes through a line of eight new trees between three or four that have succeeded in the storm. They are hung and lean of the toothpick, their superior higher than the clean shear by the wind, a lasting recall that there are things beyond the control of Augusta National.
