TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FOX49) — Ash crunches beneath your feet inside Keith Powell’s Tallahassee home. Above the living room, a hole in the roof marks where flames broke through during Hurricane Isaias.
Powell has owned the house on Cavalcade Trail since 1988. Now, after nearly four decades, he doesn’t know whether it can be repaired or will have to be rebuilt.
The damage began around 9:35 p.m. Friday, October 9, when a neighboring tree fell onto the property during the hurricane.
According to Powell, the tree tore electrical components and wiring from the side of his home, sparking a fire that quickly spread through the attic.
Powell was out of town racing motorcycles. His wife, Whitney, was home alone.
The Tallahassee Fire Department responded to find smoke coming from the eaves, flames extending through the roof and downed power lines nearby.
Despite heavy rain and strong winds, firefighters entered the home and brought the flames under control.
Whitney escaped without injury.
Nearly four decades of memories
Powell says the house has been a gathering place for generations of his family.
“I’ve had, all my family members have lived here through divorces and I always got a room, move in with me and my mom moved here and I’ve had cousins and nephews and brothers have all lived here,” Powell said.
The family had also recently invested in improvements, including a new roof, carpentry repairs and fresh paint.
Now, Powell is navigating an insurance claim and preparing for what could be extensive reconstruction.
“We got the new roof on the house I had a carpenter come out and fix everything and we painted it up and really had at least the front half of the house Looking exactly like we wanted so it’s kind of tragic that now this has happened once we did all the repairs,” he said.
A mitigation company is expected to cover the damaged roof while contractors determine whether the structure can be saved.
Powell says the financial impact remains uncertain.
“I hope I have enough coverage to cover all the restoration that’s gonna be needed,” he said.
Despite the destruction, Powell says his wife and the family’s cat survived.
Thousands lose electricity across Tallahassee
Powell’s home was among the most severe examples of damage reported in Tallahassee, where Hurricane Isaias brought down trees and knocked out electricity to nearly 25,000 city utility customers.
According to the City of Tallahassee, crews reduced outages to approximately 5,000 customers within an hour of landfall.
By Saturday morning, the city reported restoring service to more than 98% of affected customers, leaving approximately 2,000 scattered outages requiring additional repairs.
The National Weather Service recorded a 52-mph wind gust at Tallahassee International Airport. Rainfall totaled 2.77 inches at the airport through midnight Friday, although some locations received approximately four inches.
The hurricane’s most destructive winds remained farther west.
Isaias made landfall near Destin around 9:30 p.m. Friday as a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.
Gadsden County identifies lessons for next hurricane
In neighboring Gadsden County, Emergency Management Director Tashonda Whaley says the county avoided significant reported structural damage.
Officials documented approximately 15 downed trees and several fallen power lines.
Talquin Electric reported outages peaking around 2,200 customers, with approximately 800 still without electricity during the county’s Saturday morning operational update. Those figures did not include unconfirmed outages in Quincy.
The Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office also lost commercial electricity, requiring backup generator power.
A temporary Text-to-911 outage occurred, although officials reported that regular 911 calls and radio communications continued operating.
Whaley says those disruptions did not prevent emergency responders from assisting residents.
But she identified one area where the county can improve: ensuring newer emergency personnel fully understand their responsibilities.
“One thing that I will, I would say that we need to do differently is to, you know, make sure that everyone, especially being that we have a lot of new people in new positions just to make sure that we have those people up to date on what their roles and responsibilities are,” Whaley said.
The county’s Emergency Operations Center operated at full activation throughout the hurricane before transitioning to monitoring status Saturday afternoon.
Whaley says officials are still collecting preliminary damage estimates and recovery costs.
Statewide recovery continues
Across Florida’s storm-affected communities, recovery operations remain underway.
According to Governor Ron DeSantis’ October 12 update, electricity had been restored to more than 70% of affected customer accounts as of 1 p.m. Monday.
The Florida National Guard reported clearing more than 1,700 miles of roadway, while state transportation officials said 320 traffic signals had been restored using temporary generator power.
The state has also activated a $10 million emergency bridge loan program for qualifying businesses affected by Isaias.
For Powell, recovery will be measured differently.
He says he spent years paying to remove dangerous trees from his own property, hoping to prevent precisely this kind of disaster.
Now, a tree from beyond his property has left him facing an uncertain future.
He doesn’t know whether his home can be saved.
But he knows he wants to remain in the neighborhood where he has spent most of his adult life.
“I’ve never wanted to move away and I don’t want to,” Powell said.