One dead, more than 80,000 without power in Tallahassee after severe weather hits area • Florida Phoenix

Severe weather in Tallahassee on Friday morning resulted in the death of a woman who was killed when a tree fell on her home, according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has not officially said whether the storm resulted in a tornado, but an NWS meteorologist told the Tallahassee Democrat that a series of severe storms that hit the Tallahassee area “produced their own tornado- “Debris signature”.

According to the City of Tallahassee’s outage map, the state capital has reported 461 power outages affecting nearly 81,000 people as of 3:30 p.m. All schools and universities in the region are closed on Friday.

About two hours after the storm passed, Gov. Ron DeSantis continued to post X that he had directed the Florida Division of Emergency Management to “do everything possible to get the lives of our residents back to normal as quickly as possible.”

Later Friday, the governor announced that in an executive order he had declared a state of emergency for 12 counties – Baker, Columbia, Gadsden, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Suwannee, Taylor and Wakulla counties.

Relief crews from 10 utilities, including from Alabama and Louisiana, are arriving to help with recovery efforts, and additional calls for help have been requested from state and regional utilities. The city of Tallahassee reported that initial estimates were that more than 100 poles were broken.

“The reports I’m getting are that we had wind gusts between 80 and 100 miles per hour … that’s hurricane strength,” Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey told Fox Weather on Friday. “It was a massive storm, and what’s concerning is that we’re not even into storm season yet.”

Florida’s hurricane season is scheduled to begin June 1, three weeks after Friday.

With additional reporting from Jackie Llanos.