Two Killed In NE Ga Plane Crash

Two people are dead after a light sport airplane crashed near Cedartown late Thursday afternoon. Kathleen Bergen with the Federal Aviation Administration says officials are unsure exactly when the plane went down, but 9-1-1 calls about a low flying aircraft were received about 4:30 p.m.Thursday. The two victims, whose identities are unknown, were found Friday morning by authorities.

Bergen says the plane is a Quikr registered to Atlanta Sport Aviation Inc. of Cedartown, in northeast Georgia.

Two NE Ga Counties Cut Staff To Ease Shortfall

Two northeast Georgia counties facing budget shortfalls have trimmed some department staff. Jackson County officials say they’ll save $225,000 through the end of the year with the recent lay-offs of four building inspectors and two engineering department workers. Neighboring Barrow County is saving $70,000 with the lay-off of two staff members. This is on top of a cut of between three to ten percent of all county salaries.

NE Ga counties aim for shared public radio system

Five northeast Georgia counties hope to soon band together to share in a new regional public safety radio system. Oconee, Athens-Clarke, Greene, Morgan and Walton counties would be part of the communications system. Proponents say the 800-megahertz digital network would better link law enforcement agencies and officers in the five-county region.

Oconee County Sheriff’s office Captain Jimmy Williams says this system is critically needed:

"Northeast Georgia area does not have one...we’re the only one in the state that doesn’t have a system. Hall County’s doing the same thing with the northern part of our region, and hopefully in the future joins those two systems together and we’ll have seamless radio coverage throughout the whole region-one."

Williams says Oconee County has included more than three-million dollars in a list of sales tax funded projects for their part of the plan. He says the other counties are either ready, or close to moving forward with their financing.

Williams says if all falls in place, the system could be up-and-running by mid to late 2010.

Tornado damage in northeast Georgia

Apparent tornadoes caused damage in Hall and Jackson counties Tuesday afternoon. Officials in Hall say two elementary schools sustained roof damage, but no injuries were reported. In nearby Jackson County, high winds damaged about 40 mobile homes in the city of Commerce--two people were injured there.

Evans' replacement on DOT board to be selected

State lawmakers out of the 9th Congressional District will get together this afternoon at the State Capitol to select a new member for the Department of Transportation board. The person elected will replace Mike Evans of Cumming, who resigned his post as chairman of the DOT when he revealed his personal relationship with DOT commissioner Gena Abraham. The 9th congressional district includes much of northeast Georgia.

'Mohawk' announces another Georgia plant closure

There is more pain in the north Georgia job market. Mohawk Industries says it is closing its Dahlonega plant. The move will put 366 people out of work in June. The Calhoun-based carpet and flooring manufacturer has about 36-thousand employees worldwide, and is one of the largest employers in northeast Georgia. The announcement continues a run of bad news in the midst of a housing slowdown. In September, Mohawk said it was closing plants its Mohawk Home plants in Dalton and Calhoun. The company said it was getting out of the woven throw, decorative pillow and woven bedspread business.

NE Georgia group has plan to cover uninsured

An anti-poverty group in northeast Georgia is pushing an aggressive plan to help get basic medical care to uninsured residents.

The three-million dollar plan has been proposed by the group OneAthens. It’s not health insurance, but an arrangement meant to deliver basic medical services to the uninsured. The group says about 19-percent of Athens residents don’t have health coverage.

One of the main recommendations is to hire more clinic and hospital staff dedicated to treating low-income residents. OneAthens says this would siphon away the millions spent yearly by the two area hospitals for indigent care. A recent annual report says those hospitals spent 79-million dollars on uninsured patients.

OneAthens says funding would come from a variety of sources--the county, area hospitals, federal grants, and the state. The group's healthcare committee chairman told the Athens-Banner Herald he’d like to ask state lawmakers to allow Athens residents to consider a new sales tax.

The group hopes to get the five-year funding plan off-the-ground in September.

Icy conditions close schools, slow drivers

Freezing temperatures and thick fog are creating a mess for motorists in northeast Georgia. The conditions caught motorists by surprise this morning. A thick fog settled over the mountains overnight, and temperatures dipped just below freezing, causing wet roads to ice over.

At about 5 a.m. troopers shut down all the main roads motorists use to get in and out of the mountains, including Highway 365 in Habersham County, U.S. 441 in Rabun County, and Highway 17 in Stephens County. Georgia DOT crews have been out since about 7a.m. salting and sanding those roads, and by 7:30 a.m., the Georgia State Patrol had re-opened them.

However, the State Patrol continues to work numerous accidents because of the black ice across northeast Georgia, and they are asking people to stay off the roads until temperatures rise and the fog lifts.

Habersham and Rabun County schools are closed. Stephens and Lumpkin County schools are on a two-hour delay because school buses cannot get on the road because of icy conditions.

Send Us Your Best Georgia Snow Photos!

Send 'em here, see 'em here.


Clarkesville, GA: Residents awake to nearly four inches of fresh, wet snow (Claudia Lacy)

Make sure to include your full name, location, and contact information, including an email address.

City of Pendergrass tops in NE Ga for traffic fine revenue

The city of Pendergrass has collected the most traffic fine revenue and seized assets-per-resident in the northeast Georgia region for the second straight year. The Athens Banner-Herald details a report that shows the Pendergrass police department took-in nearly 560-thousand dollars in 2006, for a town of 491 residents. The monetary amount more than covers the department budget of 312-thousand dollars. Next in the rankings—the Arcade police department, followed by the Madison County Sheriff’s office, and the Jefferson police department, ranking 4th. The data comes from a report complied by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.

Talk of no water in NE Ga by Christmas

An official with Athens-Clarke County says that if drought conditions persist, the area will have to begin rationing of water by Thanksgiving, and the Bear Creek Reservoir would run out of water by Christmas. County commissioners were told that a total outdoor watering ban has cut water usage in Athens by nearly 20-percent. That combined with an emergency permit to draw water from the Middle Oconee River, will provide residents in Barrow, Clarke, Jackson and Oconee counties with drinking water until December 21st--under current drought conditions. Athens-Clarke County officials are working on a draft of Step F restrictions to present October 25th. That would involve prioritizing uses of water in an emergency drought management plan.

Total outdoor water ban in four NE Georgia counties

State officials have tightened water restrictions in four northeast Georgia counties, as the main reservoir for the area is running dry.

Barrow, Clarke, Jackson and Oconee counties draw their water from the Bear Creek Reservoir. It is running dry however, because of the ongoing drought.

The counties are all now under level-4 restrictions. That means a total ban for residences on all outdoor watering, 7 days a week—-24 hours a day.

Jeff Killip is Public Works Director for Jefferson in Jackson county.

"We’re going to have to ban substantially all outside use, even on the professional businesses. The water situation is worse than dire".

Killip says there is about a 14-day supply left in the reservoir.

In Jefferson as well as Athens, businesses must get a special permit and prove they are conserving water.

Northeast Georgia airport talks revived

The idea of a regional airport in northeast Georgia is gaining steam, with the re-activation of a dormant transportation commission.

After 15 years, government and business leaders think now is the time for the Northeast Georgia Surface and Air Transportation Commission to meet again. The need for a regional airport is growing once more since Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is expected to reach capacity in the next decade. Expansion of Chattanooga's airport is also an idea on the table.

According to the Athens Banner-Herald, the Northeast Georgia group abandoned work on bringing-in a regional airport in 1992 because of strong opposition from area counties. However, the Barrow County Commission has now expressed interest in expanding the Winder-Barrow Airport into a regional service hub. The airport is currently extending one runway and has plenty of surrounding property for continued construction.

The Northeast Georgia Transportation Commission will begin its reorganization plans at a meeting on August 23rd.

In a related story, state transport officials and experts are meeting in Columbus to discuss funding and future transport-infrastructure planning.

Monday and Tuesday's sessions of the State Senate and House Transportation Funding Study Committee are the third of six such statewide meetings.