Asher Lytton
Hurricane Zeta, the sixth hurricane in 2020 to impact the United States, made landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday, October 28th. It cut across Alabama and Georgia, bringing torrential rain to the Atlanta area. The hurricane destroyed power lines and brought down trees, and by Thursday afternoon, two million people were without power across the Southeast. Georgia Power estimated 550,000 of its customers were without power, stemming from 3,500 individual cases of damage along the line.
The AJA campus and the homes of many AJA teachers and students lost power. High School Instructional Team Leader Ms. Franeen Sarif estimated that close to 60% of the students had no power. Without power in the building, school could not be held in person, and without guarantee of WiFi, school could not be held online. AJA cancelled school on Thursday 10/29 and Friday 10/30.
A number of AJA families did not get power back in time for Shabbat and were forced to celebrate Shabbat in the dark. Additionally, a fallen tree brought down the communal eruvin in Toco Hills and Dunwoody. An eruv is a rabbinic enactment that allows carrying between public and private domains by formally merging the respective properties. In many places nowadays, strings attached to power lines create this boundary. Because of the storm, a downed power line disconnected the eruv, stopping its effectiveness. Therefore, members of the communities were unable to carry as they normally do on Shabbat.
For one AJA family, the storm caused more than a loss of power. Leora Frank, a freshman, explained, “A huge tree in our yard fell across the street and we were blocked in our house until Monday.”
In many ways, Hurricane Zeta showed the community what they often take for granted, like roads, power, the ability to carry on Shabbat — and even security in their own homes.
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