COLUMBIA COUNTY, Fla. – As Helene heads towards Florida, residents in Columbia County are getting prepared.
It’s one of the counties under a Tropical Storm Warning.
Lisa Anderson, of Lake City, has been preparing since Monday. She showed News4JAX the preparations she’d done to her yard.
“It’s common sense you rope everything,” Anderson said.
The Lake City resident said it took her about 15 minutes to tie her outside furniture together.
In addition to tying down furniture, she filled containers of water to use for flushing her toilets, in case power went out for days.
“It’s better to be prepared and then you have to turn around and unpack and undo everything and have extra work, then to not be prepared,” Anderson said.
Anderson also has two ducks and a miniature pony.
In the area where those animals stay, is an area of her yard that flooded during Hurricane Debby.
Anderson said that the storm did a lot of damage to her neighborhood.
There were downed powerlines, trees uprooted from the ground and damaged homes.
Over a month later, some trees have not been removed and mobile homes have not been repaired, as those neighbors are now preparing for another storm.
“Everyone is still in the process of cleanup,” Anderson said.
A cleanup process, Anderson hopes doesn’t get significantly worse because of Hurricane Helene.
The Columbia County Emergency Management opened a Citizen Information Center Hotline to answer questions about the storm. It opens at 6:00 p.m. Sept. 25 and closes at midnight. It opens Sept. 26 at 6:00 a.m. and will be open with 24-hour availability until operations are downgraded.
You can call that hotline at 386-719-7530.