Sept. 27, 2024 is a day that will be etched in the minds of Augustans for decades to come.
Residents of the CSRA awoke to unimaginable destruction in the wake of Hurricane Helene, and people used their iPhones, digital cameras and drones to take photos, some of which ended up on the walls of the Ann and Ellis Johnson Gallery of the Jessye Norman School of the Arts for a retrospective.
“It was hard to look at some of these,” said Mark Albertin, who served as the juror for the “One Year Later: Scenes from the Hurricane” exhibition.
And it was difficult to pare them down. Hundreds of photos were submitted but only about 40 made it into the exhibition.
Albertin said he viewed the photos without knowing who’d taken them and tried to cover the breadth of the storm’s aftermath. Photos included trees lying across cars and through bedroom walls, a dog staring out the door to its debris-strewn yard, a child dwarfed by a towering log pile, street signs and power polls in the middle of the road.
At the Sept. 5 opening reception, crowds of people stood and stared at the images; some wiped tears from their eyes as they remembered where they were and what they lost.
People shared their storm stories with one another.
Albertin, who has filmed multiple documentaries, saw the exhibition for its artistic as well as historical value.
“So many good photographers had the foresight to take pictures even though they were hurting because it needed to be captured and to be preserved. This was our Fire of 1916,” said Albertin.
And the crowds the event drew weren’t surprising to him.
“I knew if people found out about it, they’d come. This is our story,” he said.
“One Year Later: Scenes from Hurricane” will be on display through Oct. 13. A digital guide can be found here.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards and is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
