Sandy Springs removed 56 downed trees caused by Hurricane Helene, officials told the city council at its Tuesday meeting.

Cooperation and work with Georgia Power cleared the trees, and by late Saturday night the roadways were opened to traffic. Eight sites on city property or right of way still needed debris removal Tuesday night.

City Manager Eden Freeman said the trees were all over the city, and account only for trees that fell on the public right of ways, city sidewalks or were blocking roads. By 7 a.m. on Sept. 27, Sandy Springs saw heavy rain and wind gusts, recording anywhere from 8 to11 inches of rain in the city.

“As those gusts came through, that’s when the trees started falling,” Freeman said. “Many of them ended up falling by about 9 a.m. on Friday morning. As they fell, they took out power and communication lines in multiple areas of the city.”

Freeman said the city began monitoring the progress of the storm that became Hurricane Helene three days before Sandy Springs began feeling its impact. The emergency operations team met on Sept. 25 to discuss preparedness efforts. The Emergency Operations Center opened at 9 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26. Helene made landfall at the Big Bend of Florida at 11 p.m.

“Leading up to that, however, we had already received a significant amount of rainfall from a totally separate rainstorm, which resulted in very soaked ground throughout the city, and also flooding in many of our low-lying areas, especially the Nancy Creek area down at our south border,” Freeman said.

She said Windsor Meadows Park showed the benefit of the city’s stormwater management investments. Freeman said the city partnered with FEMA and the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA) to purchase houses that were on that property between 2010 and 2012 because it was a floodway.

The city’s Public Emergency Operations Dashboard currently includes a list of the trees that were cleared by Public Works staff and contractors for the city.