LIVE OAK — All the storm shelters housed at Suwannee County schools will be closed at 3 p.m. today. Evacuees still at the shelters will be transported to the Suwannee County Coliseum.

Sheriff Sam St. John said any evacuees who discover their home is unsafe can return to the shelter at Coliseum.

It is a pet-friendly shelter.

Sheriff Sam St. John estimated there were around 1,700 evacuees in the shelters.

He said there are hundreds of trees down and numerous trees on houses.

Sy. John said all main road in the county are open however there are still secondary roads closed with trees and power lines down.

“We should have every road open later this afternoon,” St. John said.

County Administrator Randy Harris said the road department started clearing trees and debris Monday morning and will continue until all roads are cleared.

He said there are delays on some roads due to downed powerlines.

Harris said all waste collection sites will be open until they have a handle on debris.

He added large trailer loads of debris should be dropped off at the landfill, located at 10910 144th St. Live Oak.

Suwannee County Fire Rescue Director James Sommers said they had a number of calls throughout Hurricane Irma including trees and powerlines down, trees on houses and basic medical calls.

“We did not have any major injuries during the storm,” Sommers said.

Sommers added they did have a chicken house fire and a partial structure fire to put out during the storm.

Now that the storm is over SCFR is receiving mostly debris calls.

Restoration efforts by Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative and other power companies continue.

Crews from Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC), Musgrove Construction and Bryant Tree Service continue to clear trees and make repairs to the electric system. Line crews from Minnesota and Mississippi cooperatives are expected to arrive in Live Oak later today.

“We are doing our utmost to get everyone’s power back on by the end of the week, SVEC CEO Michael McWaters said in a release. “We should be able to get a lot more people on when we regain our full transmission service.”

Four Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light transmission lines that serve eight SVEC substations are out. 

Anyone who relies on life-supporting medical equipment should go to a location that has power until power is restored to their residence.

After Irma passed through the area Monday morning, nearly 16,000 SVEC members in Suwannee County were without power. That number was down to 11,716 by early Tuesday afternoon.

Likewise, SVEC had power restored to more than 800 of the 3,554 members affected by Tuesday afternoon. Power was also back to 300 of the 3,129 affected members in Lafayette County.

More than 93 percent of Suwannee and Hamilton counties were without power Monday morning and more than 99 percent of Lafayette County was in the dark.

Duke and FP&L are also slowly but surely getting the lights back on.

For Duke Energy, 725 of its nearly 800 customers in Suwannee County were without power Tuesday afternoon. In Hamilton County, 2,399 of Duke’s 2,921 customers were out of power and 702 of 850 customers in Lafayette County were without power Tuesday afternoon.

Of the 5,100 FP&L customers in Suwannee County, 4,550 were without power as of Tuesday afternoon.