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This morning we have team coverage for you. Ezzy castro is watching the conditions in sumter county, but we start with mark lehman in dunnellon and mark marion county opened a shelter for those who felt uneasy. Yes, community leaders made the decision yesterday to open a shelter for those with special needs. Now, when it comes to the impact from the storm, the main area of concern has been the western part of marion county, like here in danella, take a look at what we’re seeing right now. Rain has gotten heavier within the past hour or so, and it’s been steady throughout the morning which brings about that concern for flooding in areas like this. Take a look, and you see the difference from what we were seeing from earlier this morning. Officials have been warning residents about the possibility of flooding, with a heavy rain expected to come to southwest marion county now. At this point, wind hasn’t been too much of a factor, but with the storm moving so close to the area, there have been some occasional, stronger wind gusts. Now, leading up to all of this emergency managers say the ground has been saturated, which also brings another area of concern. The danger there is that some trees may come down in this rain. With a little more rain and some wind combined, we may see some trees fall and that, of course, is going to lead to some power outages. So our main concern right now is with our special needs folks and that special needs shelter is at west point high school moving forward.
Today there are several government offices that are closed because of potentially dangerous conditions. The marion county school district is closed and the city of ocala has also canceled summer camps and programs, as we come back out here live this morning in dunnellon um again, when it comes to winds, we’ve been seeing about 15 to 20 miles per hour. Those gusts uh, maybe stronger upwards of about 30 miles per hour or so, and that rain again has just been steady throughout the morning for the several hours that we’ve been out here, we’re going to continue to keep an eye on the conditions throughout the morning. We’Ll keep you updated with any changes that we’re, seeing as a tropical storm. Elsa moves off of the gulf coast for now, reporting live in dunnellon mark lehman getting results. News 6.. Thank you mark and, as many of us know, one of the biggest issues during any storm is the threat of power, outages and that’s. Why, right now hundreds of trucks are parked in sumter county waiting to roll out to restore electricity. If it does go out and our team coverage continues now with news 6’s ezzy castro ezzy, how is it looking out there? Well, i got last half hour hour, so i mean it. Hasn’T really stopped raining out here. It comes and goes light and hard, but the wind is also picking up a little bit out here, but nothing really has changed. What has changed is that crews are now here out here this morning, getting ready to roll out.
We just spoke to the spokesperson with duke energy. She says the goal is to get these guys out of here by eight o’clock this morning. They are heading to pinellas, county and also northern parts of florida, where they are reporting some power outages because of elsa. Now i want to talk about sumter county for a second here. Emergency officials say that they continue to monitor elsa’s track. This morning we saw several people pick up sandbags. Yesterday some told us they were concerned about flooding, and yesterday county commissioners declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm. It provides some local government powers that we don’t normally use on a daily basis, and it really just opens up the avenue for getting any logistics that we may need financial assistance that we may need and getting help to. The people and sumter county did not open shelters but did cancel summer school activities today because of elsa and we’re told classes will resume tomorrow morning back out here live again. You can see. Crews are coming out here this morning, they’re getting in their trucks, they’re, getting ready to head out and, of course, we’re going to have more on this story later this morning and keep you updated on the weather conditions, like i said, rain, hasn’t stopped.
