Tallahassee area residents are continuing to recover from the strong storms and tornadoes that devastated parts of the city Friday. The latest estimates Sunday evening showed power had been restored to about 91% of impacted customers. Officials say the damage was extensive.
"Typically what we encounter is a repair situation where we have a few isolated broke poles," said Mike Crow assistant manager for the city's Power Delivery Division. "This is a complete rebuild."
The city says nearly 400 utility poles were broken. That's more than during Hurricanes Hermine, Irma and Michael combined.
Power has been restored to the majority of Leon County schools except Sable Palm Elementary and Sail High School where officials say the damage was most extensive. Those schools will remain closed. Most other kids can head back to class Monday, but Superintendent Rocky Hanna says they won't be able to take the bus. He says there's still too much debris on the road.
“Parents I’m sorry again for the inconvenience. We want to open schools. We just can’t get our buses around safely," Hanna says.
School start times will be delayed by 30 minutes to give kids more time to make their way in Monday morning.
Florida A&M University is also concerned about remaining debris following the storm. In a statement the University says electricity has been restored, but with ongoing clean up efforts, University President Larry Robinson says its "unsafe for non-essential faculty, students and staff to come to campus."
Summer classes start Monday, but officials say students will be able to take those classes remotely.
As of 1:00 p.m. Sunday Tallahassee Community College reported it was still without power and campus would remain closed Monday. Lively Tech is also closed. But, Florida State University has announced is set to resume normal operations Monday.
Meanwhile, officials are preparing for the potential of more severe weather Monday night and into Tuesday morning. The National Weather Service is calling for heavy rainfall. The city says it will make sandbag locations available for residents ahead of that storm.
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