Driving I-10 between Jax and Tally was an eye opener.
Left Jax and saw no damage at first- but as I approached Lake City/Columbia County noticed more trees down. Still wasn’t bad - but then once I got west of the junction of I-75 and I-10 approaching Live Oak it became noticeable.
I stopped at the Busy Bee (required!) in Live Oak and the cashier said she lost the barn on her property and that many people there still had no power - this was Thursday - she said “wait till you see between here and Madison”
She was right. Enormous 100 year old oaks with root balls 15 feet across were everywhere. So many huge pine trees snapped in two and it was apparent emergency crews had to cut them up and just push them off the road to get it re-opened. The road signs were twisted completely around at their bases. It looked like the old black and white photos of trees flattened by Mt St Helens in 1980.
Idalia was not a huge wide storm but it was powerful.
The Agricultural Inspection Station near Madison has been turned into an emergency command center with RVs set up along with tents, and there were about 100 fuel tanker trucks parked there to alleviate any shortages of gasoline. All in all the State did a pretty good job of storm response.
Left Jax and saw no damage at first- but as I approached Lake City/Columbia County noticed more trees down. Still wasn’t bad - but then once I got west of the junction of I-75 and I-10 approaching Live Oak it became noticeable.
I stopped at the Busy Bee (required!) in Live Oak and the cashier said she lost the barn on her property and that many people there still had no power - this was Thursday - she said “wait till you see between here and Madison”
She was right. Enormous 100 year old oaks with root balls 15 feet across were everywhere. So many huge pine trees snapped in two and it was apparent emergency crews had to cut them up and just push them off the road to get it re-opened. The road signs were twisted completely around at their bases. It looked like the old black and white photos of trees flattened by Mt St Helens in 1980.
Idalia was not a huge wide storm but it was powerful.
The Agricultural Inspection Station near Madison has been turned into an emergency command center with RVs set up along with tents, and there were about 100 fuel tanker trucks parked there to alleviate any shortages of gasoline. All in all the State did a pretty good job of storm response.