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Tropical Storm Zeta came through the area in the wee hours of Thursday morning, and thankfully was gone by the time most of us got up.

If you were awake overnight, you probably heard heavy winds — gusts were expected up to 40 or 50 miles per hour — and a lot of rain.

We didn’t hear any reports of major damage from the storm, thank goodness.

However, many people did lose power. We appreciate the crews from the City of LaGrange, Troup County Sheriff’s Office and others working hard overnight to try to get trees out of the road and the power back on so we could go about a normal Thursday.

Due to the threat of severe weather, the Troup County School System was completely out on Thursday, meaning no virtual classes either. LaGrange Academy was also out, and LaFayette Christian School delayed a few hours. As we always write, it’s easy to second guess these decisions once we know how the storm turned out, but our local schools always make decisions with student safety in mind. As the old adage goes, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The truth is that we were lucky to be spared a direct hit from a storm that hit Louisiana as a category two hurricane and then traveled through Mississippi and Alabama as a tropical storm before entering Georgia. The path took the center of the storm, with the highest winds, north of us.

It’s pretty difficult for a hurricane to impact Troup County, but this is the kind of storm where that might’ve been possible due to the rapid speed it was traveling. Thank goodness that Zeta wasn’t a stronger storm when it hit our area. Power outages were widespread throughout Alabama and other states.

Hopefully, Zeta was the last storm we’ll have to deal with after an extremely busy hurricane season in the Atlantic. We know many of you have friends and family along the coast, and so do many of us.

We’re thankful we (again) avoided major damage from another tropical storm. And again, thank you to all who worked through the clean up.