Recovery efforts in Tallahassee are continuing Sunday, two days after at least two tornadoes and 100-mph straight line winds ripped through the city, heavily damaging and destroying homes and businesses, blocking roads and driveways with debris and plunging much of the city into darkness.
On Saturday night, the city announced it had reached its goal of restoring power to 75% of its more than 126,000 customers. And while the city hopes to have 90% of customers restored by tonight, residents in badly hit areas, where power lines, poles and transformers were left a twisted wreck, braced for the possibility of a longer wait.
The National Weather Service confirmed Saturday that two EF-2 tornadoes touched down in eastern Gadsden and western Leon counties before moving into Tallahassee. NWS survey crews are going out again today determine whether a third tornado hit southern Leon County. The storms claimed the life of 47-year-old woman, who was killed when a tree hit her home off Aenon Church Road.
Here’s the latest:
City of Tallahassee says crews ‘working non-stop’
In its 11:40 a.m. Sunday update to text message subscribers, the city said work crews “have identified 333 broken poles (expected to grow to 500) and 91 damaged transformers as of now.”
It also said “circuits in the path of the tornadoes are being fully rebuilt. Additional mutual aid crews arrived yesterday, adding an additional 100 crew members. Approximately 300 mutual aid personnel are working alongside City crews as of this morning, and additional crews are arriving today.”
The city’s power outage map, however, does not align with what the state’s Public Service Commission is reporting.
As of their respective noon Sunday updates, the city reports 435 outage orders affecting 43,351 customers, or 34% out. The PSC shows only 28,554 customers still without power, or 23% of the total base.
The state’s Hope Bus at Bragg Stadium Sunday
The Florida Department of Children and Families’ Hope Bus is now stationed at Bragg Memorial Stadium, 1500 Wahnish Way in Tallahassee, till 5 p.m. Sunday, the department’s spokesperson told the Democrat.
Those in need of supplies after Friday’s storms can get tarps, water, snacks and wipes, among other items.
‘Never seen damage to this scale’: Tornado’s path of destruction dwarfs that of Hurricane Michael
Many have said the tornadoes that brought the highest winds to Tallahassee in recorded history left a trail of destruction that rivals almost any hurricane the capital city has endured.
Now we have some numbers that bear that out.
Leon County spokesperson Matt Cavell in consultation with Kevin Peters, Leon County’s Emergency Management Director, told the Democrat Sunday morning that 46 buildings were destroyed by the storms that lashed the city and county with 100 mph winds.
“To put it in perspective, that’s twice as many destroyed structures that we had for Hurricane Michael,” Cavell said, noting that 25 structures were destroyed by what many consider the region’s Category 5 “storm of the century.”
“We are nearly twice that number and still getting into the hardest hit areas to continue the damage assessment today,” Cavell said.
County officials say there have been 550 homes, businesses and buildings damaged by trees in some way, with 300 reporting major damage from either trees or vicious straight-line winds. After Hurricane Michael, 243 homes and buildings sustained major damage.
“In all my years of disaster response, I’ve never seen damage to this scale anywhere, let alone in my hometown. Now we have to be patient and support our first responders as we rebuild and recover,” Peters said.
And county officials expect the numbers to keep growing as they finally break through the debris and make it into areas that endured the worst blows.
“If you can’t get into the neighborhood you know you are gonna have significant damage inside the neighborhood,” Cavell said.
More storms, heavy rain, coming to Tallahassee as tornado recovery continues
Another severe weather system is in the forecast for Tallahassee, bringing the possibility of heavy rain as local residents continue to deal with trees in their homes and holes in their roofs.
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee said a line of showers and storms will move across the area Tuesday, though some rain could arrive as early as Monday night.
“All hazard types, strong gusty winds, tornadoes and hail are possible along with heavy rainfall potentially leading to flash flooding,” the Weather Service said.
The Storm Prediction Center has the entire Tallahassee area under a marginal risk (1 on a scale of 1-5) for severe weather. The Weather Prediction Center assigned a slight risk (2 on a scale of 1-4) for excessive rainfall Monday night and Tuesday.
“We’re looking at not just the threat for severe weather but also the threat of heavy rainfall,” said NWS meteorologist Israel Gonzalez. “It could be pretty messy and active on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it looks like it could affect some people who are still recovering from Friday’s storms.”
National Weather Service could confirm third Tallahassee tornado today
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee, which confirmed on Saturday that two EF-2 tornadoes hit the capital city on Friday, could confirm a third tornado later today.
NWS survey teams are going out this morning to southern Leon County, where a third rotating storm moved through Friday morning at the same time as the two confirmed tornadoes.
“We looked on radar and that was one of three circulations that we saw that looked like it was accompanied by the debris signature,” said Israel Gonzalez, NWS meteorologist. “We have reasonably high enough confidence to suspect that a tornado impacted that area.”
Gonzalez said one NWS team will investigate damage from the Woodville area westward in Tallahassee. If a tornado is confirmed, the Weather Service will assign a rating based on wind speeds.
EF-2 tornadoes have wind speeds of 111 to 135 mph on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.
A second survey team is going to the Dothan, Alabama, area today to investigate another possible twister that caused minor damage there.
More than 30,000 electric customers in Leon, surrounding counties still without power
Nearly 30,000 people in Leon County remained without power as of Sunday morning, according to the state of Florida’s most recent outage report, published at 6 a.m.
Power outages were affecting 29,715 city of Tallahassee electric customers, or 24% of its accounts, and 4,351 Talquin Electric Cooperative customers, or 17% of its accounts.
The city said Saturday that it had restored power to 75% of customers as of 7:40 p.m. The day before, the city pledged to reach that milestone by 8 p.m. Saturday.
“Crews will continue working through the night to reach 90% by Sunday night,” the city said in a Saturday text message to customers.
Power outages were down to the hundreds in surrounding counties, according to state figures. There were 770 customers without power in Wakulla County, 364 in Gadsden County and 163 in Jefferson County.
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
