Locals in Florida to help hurricane survivors

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.- At least 42 people have died after a catastrophic category four hurricane made landfall in Florida’s big bend region last night.  20-foot storm surges and over a hundred mile per hour winds have left millions across four states without electricity but utility crews from Missouri left earlier this week to prepare for this situation.

Hurricane Helene made landfall nearly 24 hours ago and people in the southeaster region have been without power since. Now volunteers and utility crews are doing everything they can to get people back on their feet

Nearly four million people across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas have been without power since hurricane Helene’s 130 mile per hour winds caused devastation overnight Thursday and into Friday.

“We started out this morning with 52,000 customers out of power as of 6:00 this morning, and presently have them right at 15,000,” Keith Kubik said.

Kubik is from Springfield and has been a lineman for 40 years. He arrived in Tallahassee, Florida, just northwest of where Helene made landfall, on Wednesday. He says they are seeing debris but could have been much worse.

“I would say that if this would have been a direct hit to Tallahassee, this place would have been destroyed,” Kubik said. “But, from all the customers that we’ve been talking to, that they are so blessed, you know, by God that they didn’t get hit by this.”

Whenever disaster strikes, City Utilities has an agreement with the Missouri Public Utility Alliance where linemen such as Kubik travel to serve these communities. The agreement also would send crews to the Ozarks if the time ever came.

“City utilities is very good at doing that because we want to be able to have somebody come help us out, too, when we get our ice storms or our tornadoes up in our neck of the woods,” Kubik said.

For the third time this year, the Missouri-Arkansas chapter of the American Red Cross has launched rapid relief efforts for those in the path of natural disasters. 13 volunteers from the state of Missouri left earlier this week in hopes to be settled before the storm hit.

“The Red Cross has been tracking this now for a couple of weeks. We have 18 semi-trucks that have come. They were positioned in a safe place outside the predicted storm area, ready and waiting to go,” Kim Mailes said. “I arrived here Tuesday ahead of the storm, and they flew a leadership team in before the hurricane.”

Kim Mailes is a volunteer from right here in the Ozarks who has been with the Red Cross since 2021. He has deployed to eight disasters just this year and is

“There’s a good bit of destruction there. Last night I worked all day long and into the night hours, getting plans ready for today,” Mailes said. “It was fast. It didn’t linger and drop tons of rain like it often does. That’s the only thing good you could say about the storm.”

Georgia, North and South Carolina have all been dealing with extreme flooding Friday as Helene has been downgraded to a tropical depression. Mailes is expecting recovery efforts to be set up for weeks to come.

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