Local emergency management officials are keeping a close eye on Hurricane Dorian as it makes its way toward Florida, but even if the storm does end up affecting Alabama, it wouldn’t do so before the middle of next week.

As Dorian approached Category 4 status Friday, Cullman EMA director Phyllis Little said local and state emergency response teams stand ready to act, should Florida put out the call for mutual aid once the storm arrives farther south.

“We’re staying up to date for sure. We’re not receiving anything from the state that shows cause from concern in Alabama at all, though of course that could change,” she said. “But our statewide mutual aid team; our members are being kept up to date, to be sure we’d be ready in the event that we’d be called for mutual aid in Florida.

“Right now, we’re not even hearing any information that would indicate evacuees are headed this far away from their homes,” she added. “Most of those folks are going to stay as close to home as they can, and probably move up north into Georgia so that they can return home as fast as possible once the storm has passed.”

As of late Friday, hurricane prediction models had Dorian making its way across most of Florida before making a northward turn and heading into Georgia and the Carolinas, likely placing the brunt of the dwindling system east of the Cullman area. But hurricanes are unpredictable, so Little and other EMA officials in Alabama are monitoring the periodic model changes closely.

“By the time it moves across Florida, it looks like it’s going to make a northern turn, probably as a Category 1or a Category 2,” Little said.

“But at this early stage, it depends on whom you listen to in terms of what it might do once it’s moved into Florida. By tonight when the do another check on it, it could be totally different. It’s aways a possibility that it could move into the Gulf, stall, and have a resurgence of energy from the warm water. If that happened, there’s no way to know where it might go next.”

Regardless of Dorian’s more distant track, the long Labor Day weekend won’t suffer any effects from the storm’s wrath here in Cullman County.

“Even if it should move into the Gulf, it wouldn’t be affecting us here before probably Wednesday or Thursday of next week,” said Little. “We’re telling people to just go ahead and make plans to prepare just in case. Exercise due diligence and take precautions — but don’t get in a panic over it at this point.”