close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

    • Tallahassee dodges Hurricane Helene’s bullet
    news

    Tallahassee dodges Hurricane Helene’s bullet

    Vaseline Posted on

    play

    Tallahassee dodged the proverbial bullet, nearly missing the eyeball of Hurricane Helene – the storm’s worst winds.

    The Category 4 storm barreled into the Big Bend Thursday night with a fury the area has never seen before. The rain and wind left thousands of people without power.

    Some of the hardest-hit counties — Taylor, Dixie, Suwannee, Madison — were taken off the grid entirely, according to a USA TODAY power outage tracker. Others, like Jefferson and Wakulla, were close behind, with almost but not all customers without power.

    At 7:41 a.m., the city of Tallahassee’s power outage map reported 883 outages, affecting 52,724 customers. Talquin Electric’s outage map reported 17,080 outages in Leon County, nearly 66% of its customers.

    Here’s the latest on the storm’s path:

    Dawn broke over a battered and sudden Big Bend region of Florida Friday morning after Hurricane Helene roared ashore overnight.

    The acrid smell of pine filled the air, an artifact of the hundreds of fallen trees along the roads between St. Marks and Perry.

    Emergency responders poured into the area, weaving like sheriff’s deputies around fallen trees along U.S. Highway 98, restricting access and patrolling for possible looting.

    In the small community of St. Marks, about 20 miles south of Tallahassee, floodwaters had reached the front of the U.S. Post Office, about 3/10 of a mile from the St. Marks River, which empties a few miles into the Gulf. downstream.

    Some residents planned to ride out the storm in their homes or aboard fishing boats moored at the marina. They could not immediately be reached Friday morning, although cell phone service was working in the area.

    TAYLOR COUNTY – Outside Perry, 80-year-old longtime resident Donna Parker watched her grandson cut down a fallen palm tree with a chainsaw.

    Parker has lived in her house since 1985 and has never left because of a hurricane, the names of which she can still rattle off.

    “The wind was bad. But I’ve had worse. We’ve really had worse. “I’ve had it where my whole front yard was a lake,” she said.

    “Many prayers, I tell you, when the wind rises. But the good Lord took care of us.”

    –Trevor Hughes

    According to a city update, power restoration and road clearing began overnight.

    The first reviews show:

    • 50 roads blocked by fallen trees
    • 53,000 customers without power
    • Nine transmission lines, six substations and 46 circuits are down

    “Crews continue to assess damage and make repairs,” the city said.

    Leon County officials say the capital and city were spared from Hurricane Helene, where the worst of the winds were blowing.

    The National Weather Service and Hurricane Center clocked winds of 140 miles per hour in the eyewall, said Kevin Peters, director of Emergency Management.

    It’s too early to predict the extent of damage caused by the Category 4 storm that made landfall just 30 miles (48 kilometers) to the east, Leon County Administrator Vince Long said, but the number of calls to the Consolidated Dispatch Agency was lower than normal.

    “These early hours here are really going to tell the story for us as we move forward and really try to figure out the extent of the damage in the community,” Long said.

    He said calls throughout the night were mainly to report trees had fallen or sparking power lines had been spotted.

    So far, crews have cleared 50 roads with fallen trees and more assistance and assessment will take place after sunrise, Peters said.

    The emergency activation “was extensive,” Long said. “We unfortunately have a lot of experience with hurricanes,” he said. “We’ve had six since 2016.”

    Both officials noted how well the community responded to the city and county’s messaging efforts. A mandatory evacuation was ordered for RVs and mobile homes, and county-provided shelters housed 1,600 people, Long said.

    Now that the worst of Helene is behind Leon County and Tallahassee, the goal is to repair Helene’s damage as quickly as possible and keep track of future storms during the final month of hurricane season.

    “Helene is done with us, but not yet hurricane season,” Long said.

    Vaseline
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like