Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Actions to ensure public safety kick into high gear when there's a Category 4 hurricane coming to town. Thankfully, an impending storm of this magnitude brings lots of helpers to town as well.
Monticello Chief of Police (MPD) Fred Mosley was thankful for reinforcements that arrived from the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) to help as Hurricane Idalia brought life-threatening conditions to residents here. With TPD's assistance, MPD was able to increase their visible presence in Monticello to identify hazards, respond to needs and direct residents and evacuees to the emergency shelter and other resources for food and water.
“We would like to thank the Tallahassee Police and their Chief Lawrence Revell for additional help with patrolling and keeping the citizens of this city safe,” said Mosley.
See THANKFUL page 3
Before the storm hit, when the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office (JCSO) issued a mandatory evacuation notice ahead of the storm, MPD and City of Monticello employees took more than 300 printouts of the order door to door to make sure residents in mobile homes, low lying areas and substandard housing had time to make the necessary preparations to minimize the loss of life.
“We want to thank God that we were able to survive the storm,” said Mosley, “thanks to all the volunteers and local agencies that went above and beyond. Tallahassee Police officers are now helping us ensure that safety is being kept and that the needs of the people are being met, and that we can get back to normal.”
MPD Capt. Jack Pitts added, “We ask the public to help maintain safety and calmness, 'til we get this over. I know that being in the heat with no air conditioning is tough, but if we work together it won't be as bad.”
MPD and JCSO have noted how hard the power companies have been working to restore power. In addition to the local resources of the Tri-County Electric Cooperative and Duke Energy, power companies from around the state, the Southeast and the Midwest sent equipment and crews, who were ready and waiting for the storm to pass so that they could help address downed lines and loss of power throughout the affected area as quickly as possible. Power trucks were seen in Monticello from as far away as Wichita, Kansas!
Residents coping with blackouts have appreciated food and water resources that arrived in town to ensure that safe drinking water and nonperishable food was available to those with no running water or refrigeration. The U.S. Army's 53rd Battalion out of Chipley, Fla., were on hand to help beginning on Friday, Sept. 1. They had gone through the storm in harder hit Perry, Fla., and next made their way to Monticello's Comfort Station at the Jefferson County R.J. Bailar Public Library on Water Street. They brought an entire semi-truckload of ice, and towering cases of meals lined the sidewalks outside the library. A steady flow of cars, and even a motorcycle, pulled through the parking lot, where members of the infantry unit loaded supplies into their vehicles. The library on subsequent days was the staging area for distribution of diapers from Amazon and food from Second Harvest of the Big Bend. The American Red Cross has been distributing hot midday and evening meals from Sunday through today to residents in outlying parts of the county where power restoration has taken longer. By press time on Tuesday morning, Sept. 5, only 6.9 percent of TCEC customers still had an outage, and all of Duke customers reportedly had their power restored.
While life for many is returning to normal this week, there are still many of our hardest hit neighbors across Jefferson County with needs still being addressed. Residents are encouraged to follow the Jefferson County Emergency Management Facebook page for updates on the coordinated storm response of local law enforcement, fire stations, power companies, schools, community groups and city and county departments. Resources are here – from both near and far – to accomplish continued recovery from the storm.
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