COLUMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — Of all the nine Northeast Florida counties in Action News Jax’s viewing area, Columbia County took the brunt of Hurricane Helene.
Restoration efforts have been underway in Columbia County since early Friday morning.
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The damage left in the storm’s wake was severe in some parts of Lake City.
As Hurricane Helene’s winds ripped through the city late Thursday night, Latoya Lloyd and her family were in their home riding out the storm.
But as the winds picked up, things got serious.
Read: Hurricane Helene: ‘We are going to bounce back’
An ominous text from her son, who was staying at a friend’s house, came in just moments before Lloyd’s night was turned upside down.
“He’s like ‘Mom, get out.’ Then he texted again and said, ‘Now.’ By the time he said now, we heard this like loud noise,” Lloyd said.
That loud noise was the sound of an enormous pine tree twisting like a candy cane and falling onto Lloyd’s home.
Read: Photos, videos show Hurricane Helene damage around Southeast Georgia, Northeast Florida
“He and I, we run out of our rooms together and we kind of like clash. So, we ended up falling because it was dark. The power had went out,” Lloyd said.
Lloyd, her daughter, and two sons scrambled to gather their things as water poured in from the ceiling.
“Especially like my picture of my mother and grandmother that are now deceased. So, it would have hurt to have lost all that,” Lloyd said.
They ended up spending the night in a banking parking lot in their car, watching the storm take its toll on their city.
“The sky was turning green and blue. We even witnessed another tree fall onto another home. So, yeah, it was really bad,” Lloyd said. “I felt like I was in a movie.”
Lloyd and her family just told Action News Jax they’re thankful they made it out safe.
Read: House catches fire during Hurricane Helene flooding
A tree removal crew was already getting to work pulling the massive pine off of their home by midday Friday.
Now, she’s just got to figure out where to stay in the meantime, as she makes a claim and gets the damage repaired.
“This is actually the easy part. You know, some may look at it and be like, ‘Wow!’ But it’s not. I mean the hard part was just making sure that we stayed safe not knowing what tomorrow was going to bring,” Lloyd said.
Photos: Hurricane Helene hits Florida, drenches southeast
Beyond the repairs individual home and business owners will need to make, power restoration was still a work in process late into Friday afternoon.
Our crews were on scene Thursday night and captured the colorful display of exploding transformers as they lit up the horizon.
Less than 12 hours later, utility crews were already hard at work trying to get the lights back on.
Photos: Hurricane Helene damage around Georgia, Florida
In one neighborhood, an entire street was blocked off after an uprooted tree cracked a utility pole in half and littered the road with downed power lines.
Vada Brattin recalls the moment she heard the tree come down across the street from her home.
“When I heard that tree go down, I was terrified. My mom called me. She was like, ‘Are you okay?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, the power completely cut out.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh this is lovely,’“ Brattin said. “Sarcastic, obviously.”
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More than 99 percent of Columbia County customers lost power during the storm.
It’s unclear how long it might take to put a major dent in that number.
In total, fewer than 150 customers in all of surrounding Columbia County didn’t lose power during the storm.
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By noon, utility crews had cleared off the road near Brattin’s home, but restoring power to neighbors on her street isn’t likely to be a quick fix given the extent of the damage to several utility poles.
Brattin said she’s just thankful she and her family, and their home made it out safe.
“And I pray for the people that did like have things happen to their house cause my aunt has had things happen to her house before and I know people who’ve been like worse, much, much worse,” Brattin said.
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