Putnam County officials warn of looming Hurricane Milton impacts, urge preparedness

Putnam County, Fla. — Northeast Florida is bracing for Hurricane Milton’s impact with Putnam County officials preparing for the storm ahead. Emergency management leaders met Monday morning to warn the public of the incoming storm’s effects, just a couple weeks after Hurricane Helene left behind debris itself in parts of the county.

“With back to back storms, it gets really difficult to do recovery properly,” Danielle Rich with Putnam County Emergency Management said Monday morning. “We had had a plan on getting debris picked up and with that compressed time period, we don’t have that anymore.”

Free sand bag sites are also set up across the county to help the expected flooding outside of people’s homes. Those locations are listed below:

• 145 West Washington St., Hawthorne
• 51 Sportsman Drive, Welaka
• 223 Putnam County Blvd., East Palatka
• 341 Paradise Circle, San Mateo
• Jonas Road, Crescent City
• 5226 Silver Lake Drive, Palatka
• 107 Johns Road, Palatka
• 114 South 11th St., Palatka

Although not mandatory, county officials are also urging evacuations for neighbors in several low lying and coastal areas. That’s the recommendation, even for those planning to use sandbags.

“If you flooded within the past month or two, please take heed to that. Because there’s a lot of water coming,” warned Larry Harvey, chairman of the Putnam County Board of County Commissioners.

When the storm does clear, Putnam County Emergency Management is asking residents to stay in their homes and let first responders do their job.

“You don’t know the road conditions, and also when you’re going out, you don’t know what power lines are gonna be live,” Rich warned. “They do get tangled up in trees and I know everybody wants to help, they wanna go cut the trees down, help clear the roads, but you don’t know if that is a live power line and that is a hazard.”

Information on shelters (including pet friendly ones) and evacuation zones can be found by clicking the link here.

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Read: County-by-county list of school closures in Northeast Florida due to Hurricane Milton

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