As communities wait for daylight to come Thursday morning to see the damage that has been done and for emergency personnel to start rescue efforts, counties in north Florida are sending their crews to the Tampa Bay area to aid in recovery.
In Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey shared that their Fire Department, Urban Search and Rescue, Task Force 7, Water and Wastewater crews and other Emergency Management teams have all gassed up, checked equipment, and have headed to the coast.
"There’s two different types of response when storms hit Florida. When our community is not impacted, the first thought is, how can we help the other communities?” said Mayor Dailey.
"We just had our electric utility crews and our fleet return from Taylor County after Helene, and they gassed up, checked all equipment and personnel, caught their breath and were deployed Tuesday staging in Lakeland and waiting for the signal to help recovery and rescue."
Not only is Tallahassee a safe haven for residents fleeing the coast, but the city’s airport is a stationary for the U.S. Coast Guard and other military crews that will need to run missions throughout the state.
"We don’t know what mother nature is going to bring, we don’t know how bad it is going to be, though it is going to be a horrible storm, and so we are going to roll up our sleeves and help our neighbors to the south get back to work and restore their communities," said Mayor Dailey.
“I know we’ve got massive amounts of resources that have been prepared for this storm, people are tired after dealing with hurricane Helene, and yet all I have seen is people just dig deep inside and say were not going to be denied, we are going to get the job done," said Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The capital city has taken all of their extra resources they have for storm response and have and sent them down to central Florida and the coast to make sure our communities in the Tampa Bay and beyond have everything they need to rebuild after hurricane Milton.
Mayor Dailey adds that it takes a team effort during hurricane season, and he is happy the city of Tallahassee can help.
“We want to be a team player, I know the mayors, I’ve talked to my mayors down on the coast who are great people, and I believe in their local leadership, we all help each other our during the time of storms," said Mayor Dailey.