Three deaths have been attributed to Hurricane Helene as The Villages area was largely spared by the hurricane that roared into the Big Bend area as a Category 4 storm.
While The Villages area saw some wind and rain and a few scattered power outages, Florida’s Friendliest Hometown remained relatively untouched by the huge storm. The Tri-County area had many closings prior to the arrival of Helene, including schools and government offices.
Marion County government offices and courts were expected to remain closed on Friday, though it was anticipated most government offices, including The Villages District Government and offices in Lake and Sumter counties, would be reopening Friday. Lake-Sumter State College has confirmed that all of its campuses would reopen Friday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that the toll of the devastating storm would be taken at first light.
“When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we’re going to be waking up to a state where very likely there’s been additional loss of life, and certainly there’s going to be loss of property,” the governor said in a briefing shortly before midnight Thursday.
He confirmed one fatality – a car traveling on Interstate 4 near Tampa was hit with an overhead road sign. Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp reported that two people in Wheeler County were killed by a tornado spawned by Hurricane Helene.
About 1.5 million were without power as of Friday morning.
As of 7:30 a.m., Duke Energy’s 8,000 workers had restored power for nearly 198,000 customers, while over 402,000 are still experiencing outages.
“Our crews worked through the night to assess the immense damage caused by Hurricane Helene and get the lights back on where conditions allowed,” said Todd Fountain, Duke Energy Florida storm director. “We’ve made significant progress over the last 24 hours, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us. We thank our customers for their patience, support and ongoing commitment to safety.”
