Florida recovering from Helene, but another tropical threat looms

AccuWeather

Kevin Guthrie of the Florida Division of Emergency Management says power has returned for nearly the entire state after Hurricane Helene. They're now bracing for another threat looming in the tropics.

Transcript

00:00Director Guthrie, what are you seeing and hearing on the ground across the state from residents?

00:06So right now we've got the power back on faster than we've ever done it before. We're at 99

00:11percent plus of individuals already restored with full power. A lot of those accounts came on last

00:16night. So we're down to about 20,000 or less. We hope to have a majority of those people on by

00:23the end of the day today. So again, we beat our records in the past of about 85 percent

00:29restoration in 48 hours and certainly continue to improve in that area. Right now what people

00:34are dealing with more than anything else is the flood damage in their homes. So we have

00:39over 20 non-profit organizations going door to door doing those mucking guts and getting those

00:44that stuff ripped out of there and getting out to the road's edge. We want to get as much of

00:48this debris picked up as we possibly can. Set the expectation we're not going to get it all picked

00:52up. That's just not going to happen. But we want to get as much of that picked up as we can before

00:56we get into next week's storm. And we say, you know, again, whatever that might be, whether it's

01:00a rain event or rain and a wind event, try to get as much of that picked up, especially that I-4

01:05corridor, Pinellas, Pasco, Tampa, Hillsborough. Try to get as much of that picked up as we can.

01:10That's what we're focused on right now. And Director Guthrie, what has really been, not

01:15surprising because we forecasted it, but you know the storm made landfall in the Big Bend. It was

01:21east of the west coast of Florida, about 150 to 200 miles, that is, Helene. And yet the storm surge

01:28and the damage that we've seen along the west coast of Florida has been extensive, has it not?

01:35Yeah, it has. And I really think, and maybe this is a follow-up question, so I'll go ahead and

01:39answer it. The storm surge models, you know, I've been out there with the governor of the state of

01:44Florida, appreciate his leadership, but we've been out there looking at it and it was 15 to 20 where

01:50it said it was 15 to 20. It was 1 to 3 where it's 1 to 3. That accurate, the accuracy of the

01:56National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service storm inundation mapping was dead on. And you know

02:02in 2017-2016 when that was a pilot program versus what it is today, it has gotten much better. I

02:08think people have got to stop looking at the cone and start focusing more on the storm surge. Again,

02:13if you're in the cone, you got a dual threat. You got wind, you got rain, you got storm surge.

02:16If you end up being outside that cone, you got a single threat, that is the storm surge,

02:21you've got to pay attention to that. And how's Florida able to help other states

02:25with resources while still responding to your state's need? Yeah, so Florida, we're very robust

02:32here. We have a lot of storm response capability. We are already down to, like I said, we're down to

02:38less than 20,000 homes without power. We're starting that recovery piece. So the recovery

02:44piece is not search and rescue. And I think that needs to be a distinction and I appreciate you

02:48asking the question. But our search and rescue assets, which finished up two days ago, are now

02:53moving up into North Carolina to start helping with that. We are in the process right now out

02:57of Jacksonville, sending the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department's 50-person emergency road access

03:02team with their heavy equipment. They'll be rolling out today, heading from Jacksonville

03:06up to Western North Carolina. We're sending some people to the Raleigh State EOC in North Carolina

03:11to help out. We've already got resources on the ground with the Florida National Guard, Florida

03:14State Guard, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, Florida Department of Transportation. So these are

03:20all of our response resources. We're now actually getting into recovery. So we're going to get those

03:24response resources to our partners to the north, helping out Will Ray and Don Campbell, those guys

03:28up there in North Carolina. They help us all the time. It's time for us to repay it and help them.

03:33And Director Guthrie, we here at AccuWeather, we are very confident that we are looking at

03:38tropical development next week in the Bay of Campeche. Now, tropical depression, named storm,

03:43either of that scenario, heading toward Florida early next week. Heavy rains, I think,

03:49our biggest impact. And how are you preparing as we're still trying to recover from Helene?

03:56That's a great question. Again, I thank you for asking it. Part of the people behind me,

04:02we have what we call FOOPS, or future operation planning. We've been doing this for four days

04:06already. We've been running different scenarios from a tropical depression to a Cat 4 hurricane

04:11hitting anywhere between Pensacola and Key West, working different scenarios all along. We're

04:16starting to focus in on that heavy rain threat, as you mentioned in the previous segment,

04:20that it's going to be more of a rain threat, probably tropical depression, tropical storm,

04:23not outside the possibilities for hurricane, but we are already focusing on that, planning on it.

04:28We're looking at putting our flood control systems out again. We think we're going to get much more

04:33for that in this storm than we did the previous storm because it was so effective.

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