Hurricane Irma: More Than 175 Homes Open For Free On Airbnb In Georgia

ATLANTA, GA -- As the remnants of Hurricane Irma enveloped metro Atlanta on Monday, more people were making their homes available for others free of charge. The popular home-sharing app Airbnb reported that more than 175 residences were availablein Georgia for people needing refuge from the storm or deployed to the area to help others.

Airbnb told Patch that it had activated its Disaster Response Program in metro Atlanta, which means that local homes could be booked for free. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)
Hurricane Irma Slams Florida
The free lodgings program will be in effect until Sept. 28 for displaced people and relief workers deployed to help, Airbnb spokeswoman Crystal Davis told Patch. Days ago, the program was implemented only in South Georgia near the Florida line. Click here to see available Airbnb residences.

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"Our focus for Irma is coordinating evacuees with Airbnb hosts who are offering free housing in their homes in the Florida, Georgia and South Carolina areas where our program is currently activated," Davis told Patch.

By Monday morning, huge swatchs of the 400-mile-wide storm were lapping at Atlanta while still raging in the heavily populated Tampa-St. Petersburg area of Florida. More than 4 million people were left in the dark and three people were reported dead, Florida officials said.

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Georgia transportation officials warned motorists to stay off the roads, especially later in the day when things were expected to deteriorate quickly. “We don’t want them to be lulled into a false sense of security because it’s not so bad outside (right now),” Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Natalie Dale told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Around the state, damages and outages were mainly in South and Middle Georgia, according to utility company Georgia Power. The company said that more than 180,000 people were without electricity in the state and that restoration teams were mobilizing.

Around Atlanta, city services have been shut down, including MARTA bus and rail transit. As the storm is expected to bring heavy rain across Georgia, Gov. Nathan Deal has declared an emergency for all of the state's 159 counties.

The State Road and Tollway Authority’s Xpress commuter coach service will not operate Tuesday, Sept. 12, the agency said.

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