Powerful wind gusts pummel Tallahassee as Helene speeds through Florida

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Ali Reid reported live from Tallahassee just after midnight on Sept. 27, capturing extremely windy conditions as Helene tore through Florida.

Transcript

00:00And we want to head over to Allie Reed live in Florida's capital city of Tallahassee.

00:05Allie, you're near the fringe of the western eyewall.

00:08How are things going as the storm is passing through your area?

00:15Jeff, I will say things for the most part. While we've seen the rain and we've seen the wind,

00:21it hasn't gotten to the point where it's been so strong where it's knocking out power just yet.

00:25We haven't seen anything like that. We also haven't seen a ton of debris flying

00:30around. My photographer Andy and I have been roving throughout the area.

00:33Winds are not strong enough just yet to get to that point, but certainly we could start to feel

00:38that over the next couple of minutes here as Helene makes its way through this area.

00:43Now, a couple of things that I want to point out here. Whoa, we're good. Hold on.

00:48Are you okay, Andy? We are okay. That is the sign, though, that Helene is certainly making

00:58its way through this area in Tallahassee. The wind gusts at times can be very intense.

01:04And let's point your direction right up on this stop sign here. That has been something

01:08that we've been paying mind to. We've seen things. Do you hear that, Andy?

01:14Wow. That wind. The wind tunnels really are starting to pick up now here in this area.

01:21And we specifically chose this area because this area, really, as we've been driving around,

01:26we've noticed a lot of neighborhoods have started to lose power. We were wondering

01:31if we stayed in one of these parking lots in Tallahassee, if we could potentially see

01:36something like that. The other thing we've noticed as we've been watching this over the

01:40last couple of hours, we've seen a ton of power flashes. We know that in the state of Florida,

01:48we're probably getting close to almost 700,000 people without power. I want to say about an

01:53hour ago, we were about 630,000 people without power across the entire state. And now that is

01:59starting to affect right here in Tallahassee. You know what's funny, Jeff? I had texted Bernie,

02:07what, maybe 10 minutes ago, saying, when are we really going to start to feel it here? You know,

02:12we were almost wondering, were we going to start to really feel that strong wind and rain? And now

02:18I think it's coming right towards us, Jeff, just as you mentioned. I think we're going to really

02:22start to see this pick up in the next few minutes here. And we are okay, by the way. We're okay.

02:27That's good. Very fast with your reflexes. Good catch there on what may have been the light hit

02:32there. So be safe and we'll check back in with you in a bit. Again, Ali Reid live in the fierce

02:39wind on the west side of Haleen into Tallahassee, Florida.

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