30 Miles Inland, Tallahassee Is Bracing for Hurricane-Force Winds from Helene

30 Miles Inland, Tallahassee Is Bracing for Hurricane-Force Winds from Helene

“I’m praying for the best,” one resident said, “but I’m expecting the worst.”

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By Patricia Mazzei and Valerie Crowder

Reporting from Tallahassee, Fla.

Tallahassee, Florida’s capital, is at least 30 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. The National Weather Service has no record of the city ever sustaining hurricane-force winds.

But as of Wednesday, Tallahassee was under a rare hurricane warning, meaning hurricane conditions are expected as Hurricane Helene rolls through Florida’s Big Bend region late on Thursday.

And that raised an unusual set of concerns for the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, namely: Is the structure that houses the state’s emergency operations center able to withstand a hurricane?

“This building has never really been tested,” Mr. DeSantis said during a news briefing from the center on Wednesday afternoon.

The walls were built to withstand a Category 5 storm — far stronger than what Helene would be over Tallahassee — but the roof was not built to quite the same level, Mr. DeSantis said. He added that officials nevertheless think the roof should at least hold up to 120 m.p.h. winds, the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane.

The governor said he and emergency staff intend to arrive at the center on Thursday and remain through the storm’s duration. Some emergency operations center staff will move farther west, to Escambia County in the western Florida Panhandle — and outside of Helene’s direct path — as backup. Mr. DeSantis said his family plans to stay in the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee, with shutters over the windows.

But Mr. DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, the executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, urged Tallahassee residents to consider whether they should evacuate. While the city is not under mandatory evacuation orders — which are usually issued in low-lying areas vulnerable to storm surge — its famously dense tree canopy means 40-foot pines could fall on roofs and make them collapse.

“This is a beautiful part of this region, these trees,” Mr. DeSantis said. “It’s nice, but they do represent a hazard.”

Mr. DeSantis cautioned residents that Helene was forecast to be “stronger than what we’ve seen in this region in anyone’s memory.”

Tallahassee, a city of about 200,000 people, saw sustained winds of 53 m.p.h. during Hurricane Kate in 1985, which caused extensive tree damage and lengthy power outages. Hurricane Hermine, in 2005, caused widespread power outages with 47 m.p.h. sustained winds in Tallahassee. And in 2018, Hurricane Michael (44 m.p.h. sustained winds) left 90 percent of the city and surrounding Leon County without power for up to a week.

Tallahassee residents appeared duly worried.

“It will not be safe where I’m at right now,” Kendall Cook, an 18-year-old student at Tallahassee Community College, said in an interview on Wednesday afternoon. “I’m surrounded by trees.”

At a local laundromat, Sawshia Lewis, a 38-year-old security guard, said her anxiety was “up pretty high.” She moved to Tallahassee from Texas about a year ago.

Her husband, Silas Lewis III, a lifelong Floridian, said he is used to hurricanes. But Mr. Lewis, 38, a truck driver, said he was on higher alert because Tallahassee was in Helene’s path.

“I’m praying for the best,” he said, “but I’m expecting the worst.”