Seminole County emergency manager urges residents to shelter as Hurricane Helene passes nearby

Alan Harris, the emergency manager of Seminole County, told an afternoon briefing at the county Emergency Operations Center that the EOC is activated and local agencies are coordinating response as Category 3 Hurricane Helene moves nearby.

Harris said fire rescue, law enforcement, public works, information technology, radio telecommunications, emergency management, planning, logistics and public information staff were on duty to monitor the storm and respond quickly. “We are monitoring, of course, the progression of now category 3 Helene, hurricane Helene,” he said.

Why it matters: Harris warned residents to expect tropical-storm-force winds and localized flooding as squall lines pass through, and urged people to stay off roadways so first responders can reach emergencies. He said crews from Florida Power & Light and Duke Energy are staged and responding to outages; about 3,000 customers had lost power briefly but most outages were restored.

Harris provided concrete safety steps and contact details. He directed residents with questions to the county hotline at (407) 665-5100 and to the county preparedness website (prepareseminole.org) for a damage-assessment report form. For nonemergency damage reports he said residents should call the county’s nonemergency number; for immediate life-safety incidents he instructed callers to dial 911.

On road safety, Harris repeated the advisory that intersections without power should be treated as four-way stops, citing past storms in which drivers who ignored disabled signals were injured or killed. He also warned, “Turn around. Don’t drown,” and urged caution driving through flooded areas.

Harris gave vehicle-and-response guidance for emergency operations: the county monitors wind gauges (many attached to fire stations) and considers about 50 miles per hour sustained wind a threshold where lighter vehicles such as ambulances may be limited, while heavier apparatus may continue to respond. “So if there’s an emergency, we will get there. It’s just, what type of vehicle may show up may look a little bit different,” he said.

He described a specific incident earlier in the event in which a transformer blew during a squall line in the Altamonte Springs–Longwood area, forcing some railroad crossing arms to drop on State Road 436 (Ronald Reagan Boulevard), State Road 434, North Street and Plumosa Street and creating road congestion while crews manually raised the arms.

Harris also warned of carbon-monoxide danger from generators and advised that generators be positioned at least 20 feet from homes and away from windows and air intakes. He added that because recent rains have saturated soils, tree root systems are less able to hold in gusts and downed trees have already been reported in the county.

Mutual-aid plans, he said, include a 32-deputy crew the sheriff’s office is preparing to deploy to parts of the Big Bend near Dixie County and an urban search-and-rescue task force made up of Seminole, Orlando and Orange County firefighters prepared to mobilize to the Panhandle if needed.

Harris said Seminole County government, Seminole County Public Schools and the county’s seven cities plan to reopen tomorrow unless overnight impacts change those plans. “We’re gonna continue to respond to anything that does happen overnight and to reopen everything, tomorrow,” he said.

The briefing concluded after a short question-and-answer period; Harris thanked attendees and reiterated that EOC staff and first responders remain ready to respond throughout the evening.