Hurricane Helene and the Augusta Tree Canopy, in Numbers

Last reviewed 2026-07-25. Journalists, researchers, and community groups are welcome to cite any figure on this page with attribution and a link.

Hurricane Helene came through Augusta before dawn on September 27, 2024. This page collects the verified figures on what it did to the area's trees: the city's debris and removal counts, the wind actually measured at the airport, and what the research says about which species failed. Every figure is linked below.

We maintain this page as a public reference for the Augusta area. Reporters, researchers, and neighborhood groups are welcome to cite any figure here with attribution and a link back.

What the city removed, in its own count

The City of Augusta announced the completion of its Hurricane Helene debris mission on September 29, 2025. By the city's accounting, crews collected 4,467,034 cubic yards of storm debris, removed 528 root balls and 65 cemetery stumps, and took down 18,890 hazardous trees. The operation ran from October 6, 2024 through June 30, 2025, close to nine months of continuous debris work.

The same announcement puts the city's damages at $81 million, with $34.4 million reimbursed as of that date. FEMA's disaster declaration covering Helene in Georgia, DR-4830-GA, included a $14.7 million debris removal award to Augusta.

One point deserves to be stated plainly, because it gets misread constantly. Every count above is the city's own removal work on public property and in rights-of-way. It is not a total of trees lost in Augusta, and it is not a count of what came down in private yards. No such total has been published.

The wind Augusta actually measured

The National Hurricane Center's tropical cyclone report on Helene records a peak wind gust of 71 knots, or 81.7 mph, at Augusta Regional Airport at 6:05 a.m. That is the instrument reading for Augusta itself. Larger gust figures that circulate in connection with Helene describe the broader corridor the storm crossed on its way north rather than a measurement taken in Augusta, and this page uses the airport reading.

The human toll here came almost entirely from trees. The same NHC report attributes 11 deaths to Helene in the greater Augusta area, covering Richmond, McDuffie and Columbia counties, and states that all of them were caused by trees falling onto homes. Nationally, the report counts 61 of Helene's 65 direct wind deaths as caused by falling trees.

Which species failed, and the one that surprises people

Wind resistance varies enormously between species, and the wind-resistance tables published by UF/IFAS Extension are the most widely used ranking of it. Three trees that matter in Augusta yards land in three different places on that scale.

Ratings come from the UF/IFAS Extension wind-resistance species tables, publication FOR 119. They rank species relative to one another and no rating makes any tree storm-proof.

Helene measured against the 2014 ice storm

The city supplied its own yardstick for scale. The 2014 ice storm, the local benchmark until Helene, produced 870,000 cubic yards of debris collected in 47 days. Helene produced 4,467,034 cubic yards, and clearing it took from October 6, 2024 to June 30, 2025. Dividing the two published volumes, Helene generated more than five times the debris the ice storm did.

Beyond Augusta, the Georgia Forestry Commission put Helene's timber loss at $1.28 billion across 8.9 million acres. That figure is statewide, not a Richmond County number, and no county-level timber loss figure has been published. Georgia Public Broadcasting, citing the Forestry Commission, reported that Augusta lost more than 30 acres of tree canopy on public property alone. That is an acreage on public land, not a percentage of the city's canopy.

The stumps nobody counted

Here is the gap this page exists to point at. The city removed 528 root balls, 65 cemetery stumps, and 18,890 hazardous trees, and every one of those stood on public ground or in a right-of-way. A tree that came down in a private back yard was never in that count. It became the homeowner's stump, and it stayed a stump until somebody paid to have it dealt with.

There is no published number for how many of those exist. No total count of trees lost in Augusta has been released, no count of stumps remaining on private property has been released, and no dollar figure for residential tree damage in Augusta has been released. We are not going to invent one. What can be said with a source behind it is that public-property removals alone reached 18,890 hazardous trees, while private yards across Richmond and Columbia counties were absorbing their own version of the same storm on the same morning.

Two figures on this page, the Georgia Forestry Commission timber loss and the canopy acreage reported by Georgia Public Broadcasting, are attributed in the text to those organizations. The linked list below carries the primary documents we can point you to directly.

Sources & Methodology

Every figure above was taken from the primary sources below (accessed 2026-07-25). Where a number is derived (arithmetic on published figures) or covers a broader period or area, the text says so.

1. City of Augusta - Hurricane Helene debris mission complete (September 29, 2025) — debris volume, root balls, cemetery stumps, hazardous trees, damages and reimbursement, 2014 ice storm comparison
2. City of Augusta - debris mission newsflash, alternate permalink — second link to the same announcement in case the alert ID changes
3. National Hurricane Center - Tropical Cyclone Report, Hurricane Helene (AL092024) — 81.7 mph gust at Augusta Regional Airport, deaths in the greater Augusta area, national falling-tree death count
4. FEMA - Georgia Hurricane Helene disaster declaration DR-4830 — declaration record and the debris removal award to Augusta
5. UF/IFAS Extension - Selecting Tropical and Subtropical Tree Species for Wind Resistance (FOR 119) — wind-resistance ratings for water oak, loblolly pine and sweetgum