BREAKING: No fatalities reported along the Taylor County coast

Posted on September 2, 2016

With now Tropical Storm Hermine making its way into South Carolina, hundreds of Taylor County residents have been left to assess the damage and begin was appears to be a long clean-up process. Despite the damage, however, there have been no reported fatalities along the county’s coast as a result of the storm and very few injuries.

Local officials, joined by state and federal representatives, manned the Taylor County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) before and after the storm made landfall around 1:30 a.m. near St. Marks with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. Hermine produced significant storm surge along the coast as well as heavy rains and winds. It also spawned a number of possible tornadoes.

According to County Administrator Dustin Hinkel, first responders were called to make 19 rescues in the hours prior to Hermine making landfall, 10 in Steinhatchee and nine in the Keaton Beach area. In at least one case, the officer had to swim into the home to conduct the rescue, he said.

The American Red Cross Shelter at Taylor County Elementary School will remain open tonight due to the amount of people still without power. Hinkel said as many as 43 people were at the shelter during the storm.

Emergency officials are continuing to tightly control access to the coastal communities worst hit by Hermine’s storm surge. Significant damage has been reported along the coast, including at Steinhatchee and the Beaches area. Florida Gov. Rick Scott is expected to tour the damage in Steinhatchee later today (Friday).

The storm surge flooded homes and businesses and did extensive damage to docks and piers in many areas. At both Keaton Beach and Steinhatchee public boat ramps, the docks and gangways were left bent and mangled. Additionally, little remains of the wooden pier at Hodges Park in Keaton Beach.

“We took a hard punch, but we were expecting a lot worse to be honest,” Hinkel said. “We didn’t see a lot of structural damage, at least in regard to homes, along the coast.”

Inside the city, numerous trees fell during the story, cutting off electricity and damaging several structures.

Meanwhile, thousands of people remain without power and it could be days, rather than hours, before their service is restored.

Tri-County Electric Cooperative released the following statement around 3 p.m. Friday:

“At this time Tri-County Electric Cooperative would like to advise all members currently without power that restoration time could extend to as late as Sunday evening at 10 p.m. Members with standing water and extensive water damage may be without power into next week pending county building inspection. We encourage people with small children and medical needs to make other arrangements as soon as possible. We will be working to restore power as diligently and safely as possible with safety as the top priority.

“We will continue to provide updates as they become available. Our outage map is a great tool to access outage information and updates http://outage.tcec.com/. TCEC personnel will continue to be available 24 hours a day until all members are restored.

“Thank you for your patience and please remember do not attempt to restore power on your own, do not go within 25 feet of downed power lines, and use extreme caution in standing water.”

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