GEMA pushes winter weather preparedness as parts of Georgia see snowfall

ATLANTA - December is here and so is the snow in north Georgia.

Resident Lynne Phipps woke up to a winter wonderland in Blairsville Monday morning. “Just a light coating all the way up the mountain, it was really pretty,” Phipps told FOX 5’s Emilie Ikeda.

We haven’t had flurries in metro Atlanta, but the cold temperatures in north Georgia stretched down to the state's capital -- with lows in the 30s Monday.

The city even opened a warming center on Delmar Lane Monday evening in anticipation of the frigid weather.

The gust of cold weather coincided well with GEMA’s Winter Weather Preparedness Week, an annual five days devoted to educating the public on how to prepare for winter storms.

“We want for them to think about what they would do for a winter storm before there's one in the forecast and start making some preparations,” said Lisa Rodriguez-Presley, GEMA’s external affairs supervisor.

She said understanding winter weather alerts, building “Ready Kits” and knowing how to stay informed of forecasts are all important steps in ensuring your safety.

In summary, officials said it all boils down to planning ahead, and take it from GEMA, which started prepping for winter 2019 in the summer!

“We don't want to wait until the last minute to be prepared, so we got together with our state partners and our federal partners and did a full-scale exercise to simulate a winter storm hitting actually further south even than Atlanta,” Rodriguez-Presley said.

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