WISCONSIN – Hurricane Helene made landfall on Thursday evening, Sept. 26, but the impact will be felt for weeks, if not longer.

Some areas have been under a tropical storm warning and tornado warnings because of Helene. Some Wisconsinites are already headed south to help.

Hurricanes are a bit more personal now for Michael Hoffmann.

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“You just see pictures and videos, but you don’t understand what actually happens,” Hoffman said.

The Waukesha native and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee grad is now a teacher in Ocala, Fla. The city is outside Helene’s direct path, but that’s still bracing for bands of thunderstorms.

“Right now, we just got a bunch of flashlights ready,” Hoffman said. “We have coolers ready to go for food from the fridge if we need to, if we lose power.”

Ryan Cedergren, who happens to be studying meteorology at Florida State University, said his campus is essentially shut down. The hurricane is headed right for Tallahassee Thursday night.

“We noticed earlier today, it’s like a kind of eerie calm before the storm,” he said.

Students there have either evacuated or are staying in designated shelters on-campus.

“We were in this building for Idalia, and it did pretty well,” Cedergren said. “Our only concern is Tallahassee is very hilly, so we might deal with some flooding. It doesn’t drain super well. And then, we’ll probably lose power pretty quickly.”

It helps explain why more than a dozen volunteers from the American Red Cross of Wisconsin are already headed south.

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“The volunteers that are there right now have helped to set up shelters in northern Florida,” American Red Cross of Wisconsin Regional Communications Director Jennifer Warren said. “We also have volunteers that have driven ERVs, which are emergency response vehicles, down to Florida.”

Leaving their homes behind to help Floridians make it back to theirs, too.

“They provide comfort, care,” Warren said. “They help with handing out food, water.”

The Red Cross is accepting monetary donations to help recovery efforts there.

The nonprofit also recommends blood donations as Helene put a halt to that in several southern states.

For more information, visit the Red Cross website.

Someone’s a sucker for pasta. 

A Wisconsin woman found herself behind bars after she allegedly broke into a home with enough time to cook herself a nice pasta dinner.

The Madison Police Department arrested Joanna Kelly Lee after officers found the peckish prowler making herself comfortable inside a home she had just broken into, Fox News reported. 

Police responded to the Madison residence late Tuesday evening after the tenant came home and discovered someone inside with all the lights on.

Authorities said Lee greeted officers at the door and insisted she was allowed to be in the home after identifying the resident by name, Fox reported. 

“Lee provided a detailed story about how she met the resident at a coffee shop earlier and had been given keys to the house,” police told the outlet. “Lee had been in the house long enough to cook herself a shrimp and pasta dinner.”

The resident refuted Lee’s story telling police she was a stranger and was never given permission to enter her home or eat her food.

Investigators later found that Lee invented the story after stifling through the resident’s mail, Fox reported.

Lee was charged with burglary and criminal trespass and is being held at the Dane County Jail in Madison.