Over 100 people in Madison County are still in shelters after Hurricane Helene blew through last week. Large sections of the population are still without electricity.
One of the residents without power is Reason Gray.
“You couldn’t prepare for 140 mile an hour wind. Stay out of it. That’s what you had to do,” he said, adding that he is grateful repairs are underway to return a sense of normalcy to the area. “The first morning, all roadways were blocked. Power lines down, trees down. It wasn’t a way to get out. Wasn’t a way to come to work.”
People from all over Florida are helping in that recovery. An incident management team from Escambia County, resources Okaloosa County Sheriff’s office and more are all coordinating from Madison’s Emergency Operations center, said the Escambia Team’s PIO Sarah Whitfield.
“The emergency management team that’s here in Madison County, they’ve been working really hard to pull in as many resources as possible for Madison County residents, just to try to bring a little more normalcy back to the community through efforts our comfort stations, our PODS, which are points of distribution, where they can receive water, ice, MREs and tarps,” she said.
Manning three of those distribution stations are national guard members. Working on those efforts is the 2nd Battalion, 116th Field Artillery Regiment under Major Shawn Britton. He told WFSU that as of Monday, the main distribution center at Madison County High School has given 868 vehicles almost 3,000 cases of waters and 1,500 cases of MRE’s since the storm hit the region. His battalion is also clearing debris from roads along school bus routes.
“We’re all Floridians, and we’re all here to help. We take direction and try to support those counties, because they know their counties the best. So, we don’t necessarily come in with this with anything other than just the mindset of we’re here to help as quickly as we can,” he said.
It will still likely be days and weeks before the effects of the hurricane begin to fade. Whitfield said the extent of the damage to utilities means repairs will take time.
“Driving around the community, you see a lot of poles snapped, lot of lines on the ground, lines wrapped into the trees. So, it’s just taking some time, and they’re having to go road by road. I know people are wondering, when is my power going to come back on? Please just be patient with the power companies they are going to get to you,” she said.
As of Monday morning, 27 percent of Duke Energy customers and 78 percent of Tri County Electric Cooperative customers don’t have power. According to their websites, the companies hope to have electricity restored to most homes by Friday.
