Hurricane Harvey is expected to make landfall in the state of Texas on Friday night.
While Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia won’t feel any of its effects, it’s a reminder that we are in the peak of hurricane season, so we need to be prepared.
Compared to the devastation that could’ve come with Hurricane Matthew 11 months ago, one could make the case that things could’ve been much worse for our area.
With Hurricane Harvey set to make landfall, it begs the question: Is our area ready for another major storm?
In Texas, people are boarding up and leaving town.
Harvey is expected to make landfall Friday night, bringing hurricane-force winds, the chance for tornadoes, and floodwaters that could reach as far inland as Austin and San Antonio.
“It could be the first major hurricane to make landfall since 2005,” said First Alert meteorologist Arielle Nixon. “[With a] major hurricane, we're talking about catastrophic damage.”
Nixon said if a storm of Harvey’s size and strength hit here, it would be worse than Hurricane Matthew, which stayed off-shore and rode up the coast.
“If this kind of storm system hit our coast, we would see the dunes washed out even more than they were with Matthew,” Nixon said. “We would see more damage to homes and property along the coast.”
All along our coast, crews are still working to repair those dunes.
In Jacksonville, many families were without power for days following the storm.
In St. Johns County, Matthew did more than $120 million in damage and taught emergency management officials that their re-entry plan for families who live on the coast needed some work.
“It's currently in a working copy now, so we're still tweaking it and making changes, but we'll be ready,” Emergency Management Director Linda Stoughton said.
With Hurricane Harvey, Stoughton says all of Florida's 67 counties, including St. Johns, are on standby to send rescue crews to Texas.
Cox Media Group
