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BRANDON D. OLIVER/Palatka Daily News -- Putnam County School District Administrator Sarajean McDaniel, left, talks with Browning-Pearce Elementary School Principal Yolanda Brady Tuesday shortly after the school opened as an emergency shelter.
Emergency shelters opened at local schools Tuesday afternoon as Hurricane Idalia forecasts grew more dire.
Putnam County School District classes have been canceled for Wednesday and Thursday, which allows six schools to be open for people who need a place to wait out the storm.
“We meet jointly with the county and Emergency Operations (Center) staff and made a decision,” Superintendent Rick Surrency said Monday. “We know the worst part of the storm will be Wednesday. As a precaution, we’re keeping schools closed Thursday.”
At 5 p.m. Tuesday, shelters opened at the following locations:
– Browning-Pearce Elementary, 100 Bear Blvd. in San Mateo.
– Jenkins Elementary, 251 County Road 315 in Interlachen.
– Kelley Smith Elementary, which is for people with special needs, 141 Kelley Smith School Road in Palatka.
– Middleton-Burney Elementary, 1020 Huntington Road in Crescent City.
– Ochwilla Elementary, which is pet-friendly, 299 State Road 21 in Hawthorne.
– Q.I. Roberts Junior-Senior High School, 901 State Road 100 in Florahome.
On Monday, the district decided against opening the Q.I. Roberts shelter because not many people used it when it was open last year, Surrency said. District officials reversed that decision Tuesday after receiving more serious updates about Idalia, which was a Category 2 hurricane Tuesday afternoon and threatened to strengthen, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was predicted to make landfall on the Gulf Coast late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning.
“Folks, I don’t know how else to say this. But it’s very disheartening and, quite frankly, downright disturbing, the update we just got,” Sheriff Gator DeLoach said Tuesday afternoon.
First-year Browning-Pearce Principal Yolanda Brady is leading a group of district administrators who are overseeing the school’s shelter.
There were only a handful of people there around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, but Brady, who volunteered at the shelter during Hurricanes Ian and Nicole in 2022, said she expected more people to arrive as the storm got closer to Putnam.
“We’re going to take in people today and tonight (and) just watch the weather,” Brady said Tuesday. “If they come, we’re not going to let them sit out there (on the curb). Our experience last year was people stop coming around a certain time.”
The shelter is set up in the Browning-Pearce cafeteria, which will serve meals to people staying at the school during the storm. Brady said her everyday staff and shelter volunteers have worked hard to prepare the school to be used as a shelter, and if the need arises, they can expand the shelter to include additional rooms.
Brady said she expected anywhere from 60 to 100 people to stay at the school during the storm. Having worked the Browning-Pearce shelter twice last year, Brady said she saw some of the same people Tuesday who had been at the shelter both times last year.
The district’s original plan was to keep shelters open Wednesday and determine then if they need to remain open until Thursday. Surrency and Brady said Wednesday the plan could be altered if necessary.
“To my knowledge, they haven’t made a decision, but we are prepared to be open Thursday (just in case),” Brady said.
For school district information, visit putnamschools.org or the Putnam County School District Facebook Page.