Emergency personnel preparing for recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene

BAY COUNTY, Fla. ( WMBB ) – After Hurricane Michael hit here 6 years ago, thousands of people from all over the country came here to help with recovery.

As Hurricane Helene approaches, emergency services are mobilizing and preparing for the recovery efforts that will follow once the storm passes.

Bay County Fire Chief Matthew Lindewirth says the county is going over pre-plans.

“We’re making sure that we’re prepared for the community’s needs and response capabilities of our first responders and our public works and things like that what we’re doing is we’re just taking assessing where we’re at, watching the weather, getting briefings from state and federal officials. And then what we do is we formulate kind of our plan of attack, if you will, to make sure that we’re ready And I believe that we are absolutely ready for this,” Fire Chief Matthew Lindewirth said.

Currently, Bay County is not opening any shelters but they have doubled up on staffing.

“We’ve over doubled the ambulance capability to make sure that anybody that has that problem has a medical problem, that we can address it. We have fire department staff and personnel,” Lindewirth said.

“We actually have in addition to all the county emergency operation centers, what we are standing in there is a state emergency operation center that coordinates all those efforts,” Rep. Neal Dunn said.

Congressman Neal Dunn says the government will provide counties with what they need to recover from the impact.

“And we are making preparations. We have generators, food, healthcare, all the things that people need. Critically, right after the storm, obviously, the expected major power outages and all of that is being mobilized and planned for,” Dunn said.

The Biden administration approved a pre-landfall emergency declaration for Florida Wednesday.

It enables FEMA to provide federal resources to the state for emergency protective measures and recovery efforts. And fleets of construction and utility company trucks are gathering across the panhandle, just out of Helene’s path.

Once the storm passes, they’ll deploy to communities that need help.

A group of workers from Irby Construction in Mississippi was staging at the old Panama City mall Thursday afternoon. They build high-voltage electrical transmission lines.

“We remember when they helped us after our storm, Michael, six years ago, and now it’s our turn to be the helper,” Dunn added.

First responders are still monitoring the storm and will make adjustments as needed to aid the community.

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