Daryl Torres Vega woke up this Friday without electricity. Since four in the afternoon on Thursday, the house where he lives with his family, in Hillsborough County, Tampa, went dark. There was a sound similar to an explosion, which I couldn’t tell if it was thunder or an electrical transformer, and the service was interrupted. It was just at the moment when Daryl began to feel the hurricane’s wind gusts most strongly. Helenewhich was approaching the Big Bend region of the State of Florida, and was about to rise to category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Daryl, a 36-year-old Cuban, has only been in the United States for four months, and says he still preserves “the survival techniques from the hell of Cuba,” where the current energy crisis has forced citizens on the island to train with blackouts. “Since Tuesday we bought enough water and food and some lamps and batteries. We also charged the phones and laptop and picked up some trash. Really, when you spend two years with more than 12 hours of blackout in Cuba, you are ready for anything,” he said.
Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, reported this morning, from the city of Tallahasse, that as of six in the morning this Friday, 1.24 million accounts were without electricity in the State. Even the counties of Columbia, Hamilton, Madison, Suwannee and Taylor, where the hurricane made its immediate path, suffered a 99% impact on services. “Restoration tasks are underway. “They’ve been going the whole time people were without power, so I think we’ll see some progress on that throughout the day,” DeSantis stated.
The local newspaper Tampa Bay Times reported that five people died in Pinellas County overnight: two on Treasure Island, two in Indian Rocks Beach and one in Dunedin. According to county Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, rescue crews worked through the night to bring to safety people who did not follow evacuation orders for flood-prone areas, but high waters prevented many emergency calls from being answered. 911 in places that looked like “a war zone.”
In Florida, where 61 of the 67 counties declared an emergency, search and rescue operations have not stopped since last night. Ron DeSantis explained that members of the National Guard and the Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife have successfully completed thousands of missions in recent hours. “On all the calls that state officials responded to last night, we were able to find the person or pets and get them to safety,” he said.
“Now, it’s still early, those people who responded to those calls are going to do a broader search and rescue in those areas that were affected by a significant storm surge and see if there are any other problems or if there are people who are still They were left behind, but so far we have no reports of that,” DeSantis added.
Zaida Artigas, a Cuban resident in Cape Coral, Lee County, says that right now life has not yet returned to normal. The schools closed since Wednesday, due to the danger posed by traveling on the roads, and today they decided to wait for an assessment of the damage before resuming the course. “The winds were a little strong, but not like the ones we felt with the hurricane Ian. At no time did I lose power in my house, but I have seen reports of other people who have lost power in Cape Coral,” he said.
Helene It made landfall at 11:10 p.m. in Taylor County, with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. In areas within the Big Bend, near Keaton Beach, Steinhatchee and Horseshoe Beach, water levels reached more than 15 feet above ground, according to preliminary storm surge information. Two hours later, around 1:00, with the winds weakening, although still deadly dangerous, Helene entered Georgia and continued to cause damage and loss of life. So far, 22 people have died in incidents related to the hurricane, most of them in Georgia, and the rest in Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Joe Biden, president of the United States, approved this Friday the emergency declaration requests of the governors of the four states affected by the natural phenomenon and authorized the deployment of more than 1,500 federal troops in the region to support search and rescue efforts. medical care and power restoration. “My administration stands ready to provide additional support as needed,” he said on his X account. “As we mourn the lives we lost in this storm, I urge people to heed the instructions of local officials and take all precautions to keep themselves and their families safe.”
The National Hurricane Center recommends residents in areas affected by Helene remain vigilant and, if evacuated, return home, only when it is safe.
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