Florida Death Toll Rises Amid Relentless Southern Storms, Emergency Declared By DeSantis
DEBARYLIFE – A week of deadly extreme weather resumed in the South on Friday, with strong storms packing hurricane-force winds that killed at least one lady in Florida and thousands more losing power in numerous states due to uprooted trees smashing into homes.
Tallahassee, the capital city of Florida, experienced wind gusts of 80 to 100 mph, which are faster than hurricane intensity. Social media posts featured images of broken metal and other construction rubble scattered over several places.
A state of emergency was proclaimed for 12 counties in the northern region of the state that were impacted by the storm by an executive order signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday.
In a community of 200,000, half of the homes and businesses were without electricity, and workers were frantically trying to fix 100 broken power poles, according to a statement on the Tallahassee municipal website.
Three possible tornado tracks were being evaluated by the National Weather Service, according to the report.
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Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey posted on social media platform X, stating, “Our area experienced catastrophic wind damage.”
Customers have not been informed in the dark by crews that the restoration may take days. According to city officials, power restoration work is expected to continue into the weekend.
According to The Tallahassee Democrat, a city spokesman, Alison Faris, the scope of the damage has complicated the restoration process because workers must first rebuild the transmission infrastructure before they can begin working on distributing power to homes and businesses.
Faris informed the Democrat, “We restore circuits after transmission, which impacts distribution.” Everybody’s focused on the gearbox. Soon, some of the circuits here ought to start getting fixed.
To assist crews in repairing the electric system, the first wave of more than 215 personnel from 20 utilities in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina has arrived.
The Leon County Sheriff’s Office, which covers Tallahassee, stated on Facebook on Friday that a woman lost her life when a tree fell on her family’s house.
Two chimneys from apartment buildings in a complex where fallen trees obscured a row of automobiles were pushed down by the storm that hit Tallahassee early on Friday. At Florida State University’s baseball stadium, fencing was left twisted after Friday’s cancellation of classes.
In an attempt to “return life to normalcy for our residents as quickly as possible,” DeSantis stated on social media on Friday that the state’s Division of Emergency Management was collaborating with local authorities.