en route. they will be arriving this afternoon. some crews will be arriving tomorrow. what that allows us to do, jim, is not only do we have great men and women that work for the city of tallahassee electric, and we are the largest utility provider in the big bend area, but it s going to allow us to double our force so that when we talk about restoration after the storm having that type of manpower is crucial. and we are truly appreciative of all the communities that are sending help. you mentioned the trees. tallahassee, of course, surrounded by lakes. that can present a sort of secondary risk of flooding beyond the storm, the storm surge. how concerned are you about that, and how lasting might that be? sure. for the past week we have been working diligently to make sure that the entire stormwater system, which is about 450 miles worth of stormwater in the city of tallahassee has been cleaned out, there s no clogs. we ve been working with our
when it comes to wind and damage in a big city, tallahassee, you are in the way. so many big trees. so many big things between you and st. marks. st. marks is going to get a significant tidal surge, likely 12 to 15 feet in downtown st. marks. people there just need to be out. but for you, tallahassee, even a 90-mile-per-hour wind which is in the forecast will bring down so many power lines and so many trees that that s going to be a terrible place to be. if you don t have to be there, get away and let this thing this is going to be a week or two before we put all these power lines back up. here s the forecast radar. you see all of these storms coming on shore here. every one of those could spin into a small tornado. and then across parts of georgia into the carolinas with heavy rain. jim, i don t know if you know this. but back before about 2000 more people died because of storm surge per storm than now. right now more people die because of flash flooding
tallahassee. and so when you drive around tallahassee you can see people are gassing up, the grocery stores are full. people are making the necessary preparations, checking on family and friends to make sure that they re safe. we ve opened up our shelters as well, not only for our residents but to be able to take in evacuees from the coastal communities as well. and we are prepared. we re finishing up and getting ready to hunker down for the storm. you mentioned cooperation agreements. when folks have to evacuate they of course have to go to other communities. sometimes they have to travel a long distance to do so. how are those communities responding to your requests for help? are they able to accommodate the folks heading their way? so we are blessed to have incredible mutual aid agreements with municipalities from literally all over the country. when they get hit with storm events the city of tallahassee comes to their aid. and here we are facing this storm and they have graciou
electric utility as well to make sure the power lines are clear. we operate over 4,000 miles of both distribution and transmission lines. so there s been a lot of work behind the scenes by the great men and women of the city of tallahassee to make sure that we are prepared as well as we possibly can be going into the storm, and then we re going to hunker down and once the storm moves through we will be prepared for restoration afterwards. but it is a concern. absolutely. well, listen, good luck to you, mayor daley, and the people of tallahassee, we wish you the best in these coming days. thank you. appreciate it. and we will be hearing shortly from the fema administrator in terms of federal, national preparations for this approaching storm. of course we ll bring you those updates and those comments as they come. brianna. in the meantime, the funeral of russian mercenary chief yevgeny prigozhin was held privately at a cemetery in st. petersburg today. prigozhin of course killed
but inland. what is the biggest threat to tallahassee right now, and how are you preparing? well, being a tree city usa and having over 55% of the city of tallahassee under a canopy, as you can imagine tropical storm winds and hurricane-force winds, live oaks and power lines don t mix together. we have been preparing. we have backup plans to our backup plans. we ve called in our mutual aid agreements from as far away as oklahoma, nebraska, ohio, kentucky, louisiana. we know that we re going to suffer some damage with our electrical infrastructure, and we are prepared to respond after the storm comes through. as you know, trees are dangerous too. are folks listening to the evacuation orders that are in place now? our community has really stepped up to the plate and responded. i m very proud of the citizens. we are tallahassee strong. we know that this is a serious storm. we know it s going to impact