Residents of Florida’s new hurricane alley prepare for Helene’s impact

Repeated hurricanes have left many in Florida’s Taylor County feeling tired, anxious and on edge after recent predictions that a possible Category 3 storm could hit the area this week.

Jody Roberts, who lives in Perry, Florida, and has lived in the area her entire life, “Tree Capital of the South” He said residents were gun-shy. Hurricane IdaliaLater Hurricane DebbieHe said residents of the area did not want to take any risks.

“We’re tired of this,” Roberts told the USA TODAY Network – Florida.

Tropical Cyclone Nine in the Gulf of Mexico, soon to be named Helene, is making Florida’s Big Bend region a likely destination for a possible Category 3 hurricane to make landfall on Thursday. according to forecasters and models.

The the system will be strengthened The National Hurricane Center said the hurricane is likely to move toward the Gulf over the next day or two, where it is possible they could rapidly intensify.

It’s too early to determine the exact location where it will make landfall, but the storm is expected to make landfall in Taylor County again, marking the third time the area has been hit by a hurricane in a little over a year.

It could also head west, following the trajectory of Category 5 Hurricane Michael, which snapped trees like branches and left a trail of destruction along Florida’s north coast in 2018.

The hurricane is expected to weaken to a Category 2, high-intensity storm as it approaches the Gulf Coast on Thursday morning, with the hurricane heading toward a Category 3, said Joe Worster, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee.

“I don’t have any words of wisdom to say right now, I just have to take it one day at a time and see what happens,” Roberts said.

‘We are still suffering’

Michelle Curtis has worked in the forestry industry for more than 50 years and says the region is still reeling from the shock of Idalia and Debby’s one-hit-hit performance.

“We are still hurting,” Curtis said.

IdaliaMaking landfall as a Category 3 storm, it littered U.S. 98 with tree limbs, branches and broken power poles. More than 300,000 homes in northeast Florida were left without power.

The two storms combined caused about $500 million in agricultural losses, according to an analysis of producer surveys by the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

The damage in Perry was so extensive that locals dubbed it “Blue Canvas City.”

When Hurricane Debby, a category 1 hurricane, hit the county in August, roofs in neighborhoods across town were still covered in blue tarps.

“They didn’t have insurance to fix them,” Curtis said.

Curtis, who has a tree farm, said Debby leveled 70 acres of the year-and-a-half pine trees he grew.

Curtis sighed: “Hurricanes have their own wind patterns; Debbie could have had tornadoes too.”

“But it was beautiful,” he said of the trees.

Hope for a reprieve from Helen

Residents of Cedar Key, a small coastal town southwest of Gainesville, are still recovering from a massive fire that damaged four businesses on Thursday.

“If a hurricane comes, that debris is going to go everywhere,” said Debbie McDonald, general manager of the Cedar Inn Motel. “It’s going to be a mess in and of itself.”

McDonald said that when the Idalia reached Cedar Key last year, water started seeping through the motel’s first floor and damaging the tiles.

He said he knew they were in trouble when The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore arrived at his property.

“When Jim Cantore comes to your town, you’re finished,” he said.

She hopes he doesn’t come back this time.

Hard-hit Jackson County farmers prepare for latest threat

The storm threatens to make landfall just two weeks before the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Michael, which wreaked havoc on Panhandle farms, destroying timber and other crops.

Jeff Pittman, a fourth-generation peanut and cotton farmer in Jackson County, watched the weather forecast with concern. Michael damaged his peanut crop, ruined his cotton crop, killed livestock and destroyed barns, fences and irrigation systems.

JG Farm, just north of Two Egg, was bracing for the latest storm. Just 10 days into the peanut harvest season, he said they had shut down the inverters that were pumping out the crop. He was also making sure generators were in place to provide water for his and his neighbors’ cows.

“We’re taking all the precautions, we’re doing everything we can think of,” Pittman said. “We’re taking this very seriously. It looks like it could be a very serious situation on Thursday.”

Ana Goñi-LessanGannett, the USA TODAY Network – Florida state watchdog reporter, can be reached at [email protected]. James CallA member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau, he can be reached at [email protected] and at X. Call @Tallahassee. Jeff BurlewThe Tallahassee Democrat’s investigative reporter can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat: After Idalia and Debby, ‘tired’ Florida towns prepare for Hurricane Helene