THOMASVILLE- Hurricane Helene made landfall late Thursday night as a dangerous Category 4 storm over Florida’s Big Bend. However, it rapidly weakened as it raced inland, later downgrading to a tropical storm.
Thomasville EMA Director Chris Jones saw conditions deteriorate across Thomas County at approximately midnight when power outages went through the roof.
“Power outages at 10 p.m. were a minimum, but when we gave an update at midnight, they were starting to go through the roof,” he said. “By 2 a.m., there was a tremendous amount, about 13,000 people without power and we knew it would only progress.”
At that time, Jones decided to ground all crews for the next few hours.
“At midnight, we had some of our law enforcement officers say they were being pushed around in their little cars, so we grounded everyone from 12-2 a.m.,” he said. “We let some of our smaller vehicles go back out after that and it’s been busy ever since.”
Jones said they have responded to countless downed trees, with maps showing up to 97 downed trees that crews are working on or have marked as being entangled with power lines.
The south end of the county got hit worse than anywhere else, according to Jones. However, the county still fared much better than Jones anticipated.
“We did not see the wind speeds that they were saying, which is good,” Jones said. “That little bit of move to the east was a huge benefit to us. We were chasing a moving target.”
Jones went on to explain he, along with other Thomasville/Thomas County Emergency officials, were given a forecast and they planned for the worst-case scenario, but it was nothing like what they thought.
Jones said he hopes to have most of the trees on the road cleaned up immediately, but getting trees off of the right-of-way may take weeks.
“Everything else should be good,” he said.
Smaller municipalities, such as Boston are a mess, according to Jones, but officials are working around the clock to clear out damages.