ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency Tuesday for all of Georgia in anticipation of Wednesday’s arrival of Hurricane Idalia.
The storm system is expected to make landfall along Florida’s Big Bend area Wednesday morning as a Category 3 or Category 4 hurricane, then move through Georgia Wednesday afternoon and evening as a Category 1 hurricane.
The track forecast has shifted slightly west since Monday night, with the brunt of the storm’s impact in Georgia expected in the south-central and southeastern portions of the state.
As a result, a hurricane warning has been posted in Brooks, Lowndes, Lanier, Echols, Clinch, Ware, and Charlton counties. A hurricane watch is in effect in Pierce and Brantley counties. Much of the rest of Southeast and South-Central Georgia is under a tropical storm warning.
“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said Tuesday. “Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring.”
Areas of Georgia under a hurricane warning could see winds of up to 80 miles per hour, with winds of up to 50 miles per hour likely in other areas affected by the storm. Falling trees and powerlines could cause widespread power outages and threats to safety in and around areas where a hurricane warning has been posted.
Rainfall amounts of four to six inches will be common across Southeastern Georgia, with some areas receiving up to eight inches. Because the storm is expected to move through the state quickly and due to recent below-average rainfall, widespread flash flooding is not likely, although isolated flash flooding is possible.
There is also the risk of a few tornadoes in Southeast Georgia on Wednesday, while storm surges of two to three feet are possible along the Georgia coast.
Kemp activated the State Operations Center on Monday, ensuring all relevant local, state, and federal agencies are closely coordinating on storm preparations and response. The state of emergency is due to expire on Sept. 8 at 11:59 p.m.
ATLANTA – A Korean automotive supplier will build a manufacturing facility in West Point to serve the nearby Kia plant and other automakers, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday.
Daesol Ausys will invest $72 million in the project and create more than 140 jobs.
“West Point has become an automotive capital in its own right, and we are excited that Daesol Ausys will join other innovators in Harris County,” Kemp said. “Our state’s automotive industry employs over 50,000 hardworking Georgians and will continue to grow as e-mobility suppliers choose all corners of the state for the jobs of the future.”
Daesol Ausys, established in 2017, specializes in designing and manufacturing electric vehicle motor and interior components and accessories. It serves as a key supplier for Kia Georgia, Hyundai Motor Group – which is building a huge EV manufacturing plant west of Savannah – and General Motors.
The new Daesol Ausys plant will produce luggage boards and luggage covers, with operations due to begin late next year.
“We’re committed to delivering world-class services that exceed our clients’ requirements and expectations,” said Min Ho Kwon, the company’s CEO. “We are very excited about this project in the Northwest Harris Business Park and look forward to continuing the partnership with the state of Georgia and Harris County.”
The state Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce team worked on the project in partnership with the Harris County Commission, Harris County Development Authority, city of West Point, Georgia Power, and the Technical College System of Georgia’s Quick Start program.
ATLANTA – An anti-Donald Trump Republican political action committee has launched a six-figure ad campaign following Trump’s indictment in Fulton County on racketeering charges.
The 60-second TV ad, sponsored by the Republican Accountability Project, will run this week on Fox News and in the Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Phoenix markets, all with the heaviest concentrations of voters in the swing states of Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The ad, entitled “Trump Rap Sheet,” shows footage depicting Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, falsify business documents to cover up hush money payments to an ex-porn actress, and illegally retain classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
It features the mugshot taken of Trump at the Fulton County Jail last week in the same frame with the words “91 felonies,” the number of charges lodged against the former president in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Georgia.
“In America, the rule of law still matters,” the narrator says in the ad. “No one is above the law.”
The campaign also features a billboard in Midtown Manhattan’s Times Square listing the 91 felony charges next to Trump’s mugshot.
While Trump faces a series of upcoming criminal trials, he continues to hold a huge lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s certificate of need (CON) law governing the health-care industry reduces access to medical care and drives up costs by stifling competition, physicians, industry executives, and political leaders from South Georgia said Monday.
A case in point is an effort to build a second acute-care hospital in Lee County near Albany that has taken six years and run up a $6 million to $8 million legal bill without producing a completed project.
“That’s a real-life story of how hard it is to build a hospital in the state of Georgia,” Lee County Commission Chairman Billy Mathis told members of a state Senate study committee considering whether to reform or even repeal the state’s CON law. “The CON law is almost an insurmountable obstacle.”
Georgia’s CON law requires applicants wishing to build a new medical facility or provide a new health-care service to demonstrate to the state Department of Community Health that the facility or service is needed in that community.
The General Assembly passed the law in 1979 to comply with a federal mandate aimed at reducing health-care costs by avoiding duplication. However, Congress repealed the federal law in 1986, leaving states to decide whether to enforce CON. By 1990, 11 states – including California and Texas – had done away with their CON laws.
The proposed Lee Medical Center received a CON from the state back in 2017 but was immediately tied up for two to three years by lawsuits from parties objecting to the planned hospital, Mathis said Monday. After spending $6 million to $8 million, the project’s backers eventually prevailed in those cases only to be stopped in their tracks for two years by the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
With COVID mostly in the rearview mirror, the local development authority prepared to issue bonds to finance the project but was stopped by turmoil in the bond market that prompted the county to seek several six-month extensions of the CON, Mathis said.
Earlier this year, the DCH denied the latest extension requested by Lee County, essentially pulling the plug on the project.
“DCH pulled our CON right at the finish line,” Mathis said. “We were ready to issue bonds.”
The General Assembly has reformed the CON law over the years. In 2008, lawmakers exempted physician-owned ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) with a single specialty from having to obtain a CON.
But Dr. Shane Darrah, founder of Southeastern Cardiology Associates in Columbus, testified Monday that the CON exemption for single-specialty centers does not apply to cardiac procedures, which can be performed only in hospitals.
“When cardiology was in its infancy, that made sense,” he said. “But these procedures have evolved. … It’s safe to do these procedures in an ASC.”
Darrah said surgical procedures can be performed at less cost in ASCs compared to hospitals, which makes them more available.
“If we improve costs, we’re going to improve access,” he said.
While Darrah called for an amendment to CON to exempt cardiology centers, others called for a total repeal of the law.
“Health care should be in the hands of the ones delivering it,” said Mark Baker, CEO of the Hughston Clinic in Columbus, which hosted Monday’s study committee meeting. “The CON process totally stifles your ability to be nimble and react to the market.”
Efforts to get rid of Georgia’s CON law have run into opposition from the state’s powerful hospital lobby. Hospital executives and their allies in the legislature have argued that ASCs siphon off paying patients from hospitals because they don’t have to provide the same full range of medical services, including such “loss leaders” as emergency rooms and ob-gyn services.
Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-Dawson, a member of the study committee, said Monday that for-profit ASCs also aren’t likely to set up shop in rural communities most in need of health-care access because they can’t make as much money as they could in wealthier urban and suburban areas.
“You are business people,” Sims told Monday’s witnesses. “You’re going to look at your bottom lines.”
But Baker said Hughston Clinic has served patients in all of Georgia’s 159 counties. He called the argument that for-profit ASCs cherry-pick their patients a “dead animal.”
Mathis endorsed Senate Bill 99, introduced during this year’s legislative session, which calls for exempting most rural hospitals from the CON law. The Republican-sponsored bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support but died in the state House of Representatives. It remains alive for consideration during the 2024 General Assembly session starting in January.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp has activated the State Operations Center ahead of the anticipated midweek landfall of Tropical Storm Idalia in southeastern Georgia.
The storm is expected to strengthen as it moves through the eastern Gulf of Mexico and make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend area as a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday morning. It then is expected to weaken to a Category 1 hurricane as its center moves into far southeastern Georgia later on Wednesday.
“Thanks to our response partners on both the state and local levels, Georgia will be prepared for whatever Idalia will bring,” Kemp said Monday. “Rest assured, though the system will likely weaken before crossing our border, we’re not taking anything for granted.
“As the week progresses, I will work closely with GEMA/HS (the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency), the weather service, public safety organizations, and others to ensure we leave nothing to chance.”
Tropical storm-force winds are expected to move into South Georgia around mid-morning Wednesday. High winds and heavy rainfall will increase throughout the morning and continue through Wednesday evening.
Hurricane-force wind gusts will be possible in extreme South Georgia as well as along the coastline from late Wednesday morning through the afternoon.
Georgians are encouraged to keep a close eye on weather forecasts and media reports on the storm system. Those in Idalia’s eventual path can click on https://gema.georgia.gov/hurricanes for tips on storm preparations before, during, and after a hurricane.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate is about to tackle a persistent shortage of workers in one of the state’s key industries: commercial trucking.
A Senate study committee formed to find solutions to an inadequate supply of truck drivers will hold its first meeting this coming Wednesday.
“It’s been an issue for awhile,” said Seth Millican, executive director of the Georgia Transportation Alliance, an affiliate of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. “The pandemic and supply chain crunch we saw directed a lot of attention to it.”
The shortage is being felt particularly in long-haul trucking. Millican said many drivers have been lured away from the long-haul segment of the industry by the growth in e-commerce that accompanied the pandemic and has continued as Georgians become accustomed to the convenience.
“People who had never been online shopping became one during the pandemic,” Millican said.
“A lot of drivers are working for Amazon,” added state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, who will chair the study committee. “They still drive a truck, but they can go home at night.”
Like many other industries, commercial trucking is suffering from an aging workforce.
Ray Perren, the Technical College System of Georgia’s (TCSG) deputy commissioner for technical education, said more than half of the commercial trucking workforce is within five years of retirement.
The technical college system has been working for the past decade to train young Georgians to replace those retiring truckers. An initiative then-Gov. Nathan Deal launched in 2013 to offer full tuition coverage through the HOPE Grant program for technical college students pursuing certain high-demand careers includes commercial truck driving.
Enrollment in the TCSG’s commercial trucking program increased by 24% during the last school year to more than 2,600 students, Perren said.
“We took a dip during the pandemic, but it’s coming back strong,” he said.
The technical college system recently was awarded an $8.3 million state grant to expand the program, which already is offered at 19 of the system’s 22 technical colleges. West Georgia Technical College in LaGrange has just opened a new trucking range, and ranges are being built at technical colleges in Columbus and Augusta, Perren said.
Still, Perren said there are challenges to training enough students to meet the growing need for truck drivers. He said one obstacle is Georgians’ attitudes toward a technical college education.
“There’s so much emphasis on getting a four-year degree,” he said.
Perren said parents and students don’t realize there’s good money to be made in commercial truck driving. Graduates of the technical college system’s five-week commercial trucking program earn starting salaries of at least $42,000 a year, he said.
“That’s not a bad salary for a five-week training program,” he said. “There’s a lot of earning potential in this career.”
Perren said another obstacle to churning out more commercial truck drivers is that – unlike other TCSG high-demand career programs – high school students can’t earn dual enrollment credits because Georgians must be 18 to get a learner’s permit to drive commercial trucks.
Millican said the General Assembly could help address the shortage of truckers through tort reform, a cause the Georgia Chamber has embraced for years.
“In Georgia, it’s often exorbitantly expensive or impossible to insure a driver with less than two years of experience,” he said.
Millican said other steps lawmakers could take to make trucking a more attractive career choice would be to support initiatives aimed at reducing chronic traffic congestion – particularly in the Atlanta region – and identifying and securing more parking options for big rigs.
Anavitarte said the committee likely will hold two or three meetings around the state before a final meeting in Atlanta in November to finalize recommendations for the full Senate to consider during the 2024 legislative session.
