Hurricane Helene made landfall late Thursday night as a powerful Category 4 storm near Perry, Florida, a Taylor County community about 90 miles northwest of Gainesville.
The storm, which had maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour, sent at least tropical storm-force winds whipping through Alachua County in what appeared to be an unprecedented event for the Gainesville area.
“It was a long night, but we’re all still here. There’s a tremendous amount of tree damage,” Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward said in a Friday morning phone interview. “Almost always the storms end up being more of a rain event, but this time the wind was definitely the major issue.”
Ward said at its peak, in the early morning hours, more than 61,000 local residents were without power. As of 10 a.m., Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) reported some 49,000 customers were still without power.
“As soon as the winds died down enough to send the trucks out, they sent the trucks out,” Ward said. “They did a great job.”
Some post-storm outages have occurred, which Ward said is not a surprise.
“As trees are cleared, other things will fall,” he said.
Alachua County sent out a text alert Friday morning urging residents to stay at home as cleanup continues. Ward communicated the same message.
“The best thing we can all do is be home cleaning up our own debris, checking on our neighbors and making sure that everyone is safe,” he said.
Ward said almost 170 traffic signals lost power during the night and crews are still working to restore all of them—along with clearing 35-40 fallen trees that blocked city streets.
Ward said the following streets remain blocked as of 9:45 a.m. Friday:
- 5300 NE 39th Ave.
- 3300 NW 53rd Ave.
- 3000 S. Main St.
- NW 34th Blvd. and 24th Terrace
- NW 16th Ave. and Eighth St. (the result of power poll that was “crushed and dangling”)
Ward encouraged Gainesville residents to use the myGNV app to report damage. He said he is pleased with the way the city came through the storm.
“Gainesville has rallied to the occasion,” Ward said. “The good news is I’m not aware of any major injuries in Gainesville, which is remarkable.”
Alachua County spokesperson Mark Sexton said people also fared well outside of Gainesville.
“Miraculously, we only responded to one storm related emergency,” he said. “A tree fell on someone, but it was not a fatality. The person was transported to the hospital where they received treatment.”
Jen Grice, the county’s director of emergency management, said the county documented winds “well in excess” of 50 miles per hour, but she could not rule out hurricane-force winds, especially in the western part of the county.
“This is probably the most significant wind event that we’ve had in Alachua County since Irma. It may even be worse than Irma,” Grice said. “This was the first time in a long time that it’s really been widespread power outages, widespread trees down and widespread power lines down—a whole county event. There’s debris everywhere.”
Grice asked residents to be patient as crews clear roadways and restore power.
“Some areas and some things will take some time, because there are so many areas that need our attention,” she said.
As of 9:45 a.m., Alachua County reported that Northwest CR 231 between NW 156th Avenue and 177th Avenue was closed. The county asked residents to use the Alachua County Ready website to report damage—with pictures, if possible.
In total, more than 4 million people were without power Friday morning across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina as Hurricane Helene, which was downgraded to a tropical storm, continued to plow through the southeastern United States.
Officials have so far reported six deaths related to the storm, including one from a falling tree in Dixie County and five in Pinellas County, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
In Levy County, National Guard directed traffic as first responders lined up Friday morning along State Road 24 to access Cedar Key, where waves from the storm surge reportedly splashed as high as roofs.
“We saw storm surges in many parts of the west coast of Florida that exceeded what we saw in Hurricane Idalia,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at an early Friday morning press conference.
DeSantis said first responders would be conducting widespread search and rescue operations in areas that experienced what he called “historic” storm surges.
As of 6 a.m., DeSantis cited Columbia (99%), Dixie (92%), Gilchrist (87%), Levy (83%), Suwannee (99%) and Union (86%) counties as having among the highest power outage rates in the state.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated.
I want to say that I appreciate how hard they work clearing the roads and restoring power after the storms. I know many of them probably would prefer to be home caring for their own place, but they are always up and out right after the storms taking care of everything as quickly as they can. Thanks You!