Florida Governor Rick Scott was in Jacksonville Tuesday thanking first-responders for being prepared for Tropical Storm Colin, which passed through the First Coast Monday evening.
“We’ve already had three name storms this year. I think that’s the first time ever and hurricane season just started, what? Seven days ago,” he said. “So hopefully we won’t have a bad hurricane season but we’ve got to just get prepared.”
The Jacksonville National Weather Service branch confirmed at least one tornado touched down on Jacksonville’s Westside Tuesday afternoon, but no one was injured. Overall the storm is blamed for damaging a couple of homes.
Scott had declared a state of emergency for 34 Florida counties ahead of the storm.
Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said his officers were ready when Colin took down trees on the city’s Westside.
“We plan and we train and we prepare for this year-round and yesterday was a good example of that,” he said. “We came together as a city and with our state partners and really did everything that we needed to do yesterday so we will continue to prepare and continue to plan and continue to train and hopefully we have a light season but we are ready if we don’t.”
Scott says during hurricane season, his main concern now is the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus. All Florida Zika cases have been travel-related, but Scott wants federal money in case the virus spreads to mosquitoes in the U.S.
