{"id":421021,"date":"2026-10-07T08:24:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T08:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/421021\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T08:24:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T08:24:25","slug":"baker-columbia-among-25-florida-counties-under-state-of-emergency-as-tropical-depression-nine-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/421021\/","title":{"rendered":"Baker, Columbia among 25 Florida counties under state of emergency as Tropical Depression Nine forms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an Executive Order declaring a state of emergency for 25 Florida counties, including Baker and Columbia counties in Northeast Florida, in preparation for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/weather\/2026\/10\/06\/tropical-depression-9-forms-in-the-gulf\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/weather\/2026\/10\/06\/tropical-depression-9-forms-in-the-gulf\/\">Tropical Depression Nine.<\/a> The storm is expected to strengthen in the coming days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/weather\/2026\/10\/06\/tropical-depression-9-forms-in-the-gulf\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/weather\/2026\/10\/06\/tropical-depression-9-forms-in-the-gulf\/\">[RELATED | TROPICAL DEPRESSION 9 FORMS IN THE GULF]<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cToday, I signed an Executive Order issuing a state of emergency ahead of potential impacts from Tropical Depression 9. This order will allow the Florida Division of Emergency Management to stage critical preparedness resources and ensure Florida is ready to respond,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cFloridians should take this time to get disaster plans in place and ensure their hurricane supply kit is stocked,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>SERT mobilizing resources<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The Florida State Emergency Response Team, known as SERT, is mobilizing resources to support storm preparation and response efforts. Resources will be strategically staged in Tallahassee and the Santa Rosa area for rapid deployment as needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Staged assets include generators, fuel, flood barriers, boxed water pallets, shelf-stable meals, flood buckets, tarps, Tiger Dams and sandbags.<\/p>\n<p>What to expect from the storm<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">The Governor\u2019s Office says the current forecast indicates a tropical storm or hurricane could make landfall somewhere along the central Gulf Coast later this week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Impacts are expected to extend beyond the point of landfall, with heavy rainfall, strong winds, coastal flooding and isolated tornadoes possible across North Florida. Additional precipitation could further saturate soils and increase the potential for flash flooding, following recent significant rainfall across the state.<\/p>\n<p>Counties under state of emergency<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">DeSantis issued the state of emergency for the following 25 counties: Baker, Bay, Calhoun, Columbia, Dixie, Escambia, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Suwannee, Taylor, Walton, Wakulla and Washington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Residents are encouraged to visit <a href=\"http:\/\/floridadisaster.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FloridaDisaster.org<\/a> for information on how to prepare ahead of the storm. Live updates are available by following @FLSERT on X.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an Executive Order declaring a state of emergency for 25 Florida counties, including Baker&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,1852,1455],"class_list":["post-421021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-tropical-depression","tag-tropics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}