VENICE — As Hurricane Helene continued to strengthen on its way toward a predicted landfall around the Big Bend, the city of Venice remained on alert.
But not many people seemed to be taking significant precautions as forecasts successively showed the storm tracking more toward the west.
Still, forecasts showed it passing by the area Thursday morning as a huge Category 3, with winds of more than 110 mph and storm surge of up to 7 feet.
Hurricane Debby was a smaller tropical storm when it passed Venice in early August.
Speaking from the Emergency Operations Center, Police Chief Charlie Thorpe said Wednesday morning that his department’s preparation consisted largely of “a lot of monitoring.”
Potentially vulnerable assets had been secured, he said, and areas for which the county had issued evacuation notices were being monitored, but anything else depended on the storm.
He said officers would be staged around the city unless conditions got too severe for them to be on the road. They’d be based at the police station in that case, he said.