'We're all scared:' Leon County residents flee before Hurricane Helene

AccuWeather

With damage remaining from recent tornadoes in Leon County, Florida, combined with a mandatory evacuation order for Helene, many residents are scared of what will happen to their homes.

Transcript

00:00We're going to continue our team coverage right now with Accuweather's Allie Reed and she joins

00:03us now live from the capital city of Tallahassee, Florida with the latest there. Allie, how are

00:08things going there? Jeff, they've been in preparation since very early this morning.

00:16I'd imagine that's going to continue until late until this evening. Right now we are live in

00:21Bayhead Mobile Home Community. This is one of the locations where many residents in this area were

00:28told to evacuate if at all possible. If we can, before I show you something and I want to bring

00:32you back live in just a second here, I want to show you this alert that we received about an

00:37hour ago on our phones. In it, it says that Leon County has now issued a mandatory evacuation for

00:43mobile and manufactured home residents due to the threat of severe winds. They're asking anyone in

00:48the area to seek shelter no later than eight o'clock this morning. Now let's bring you back

00:52live. I want to show you a few things here. This particular area really had some issues a number of

00:57months ago. Back in May, they faced a tornado here. Let's point your direction up to the trees.

01:03That'll show you that right in this very community, they had a tornado come through this area. And Andy,

01:09if we can show this home to the right here, a lot of the residents here, they're worried because this

01:14is what the tornado left behind. A lot of the bottoms of their mobile homes had some pretty

01:20severe damage to them in this area because of that. Now looking ahead to this, many of them

01:26leaving this area or some potentially staying hunkering down, but the recommendation is to

01:31leave. We did speak to a resident earlier. Take a listen to what she had to say.

01:35It's something we've probably never seen before. We just had a really bad tornadoes came by and

01:40it destroyed, you know, here and it's very scary. We're all scared. Most of the trees you can see

01:46around my house, they're already damaged from the tornadoes that just happened that long ago. So

01:52it's definitely something to think about. Leon County schools, they're opening their doors for

01:58any residents that has nowhere to go and they're pet friendly. And hopefully, you know, like food

02:06banks and stuff will be open to help residents around that need it, you know. And a quick recap

02:15for you guys. Earlier this morning, we were over at Florida State University. It was there where

02:19students are recommended to leave campus, go home if at all possible. Many students spotted earlier

02:25with suitcases and bags leaving their dorms and going to a much safer location. The campus will

02:30remain open for those students that absolutely need it. Now, even earlier than that this morning,

02:35I mentioned eight o'clock this morning is when sandbagging begun in Tallahassee. A lot of people

02:41coming by, helping out residents, their community, getting sandbags in place to bring back to homes

02:46and businesses. All right, we'll bring you back live again. Again, the big concern right now

02:51are the mobile homes and single-family homes. Leon County is under an evacuation order that is

02:57mandatory before eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Again, a lot of people in this community leaving

03:02and seeking shelter and a lot of those will be a lot of the high schools in the area that will be

03:06opening up within the next few hours. What time is it? It's four o'clock. They'll be open at five

03:11for those that absolutely need it. Jeff. All right, thank you so much for that report there in

03:15Tallahassee, Florida. Allie Reed, we're going to have a very rough stretch there coming up and

03:19again, very glad that authorities have decided to require people to evacuate mobile homes in

03:25Leon County.

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