Over the last 48 hours, Floridians have been preparing for the arrival of hurricane Ian as it intensifies over the Gulf and heads straight towards central Florida. On Monday and Tuesday in Hillsborough County, bags of sand were being provided to the local residents of the County at the Edward Medard Conservation Park, until 7pm on Monday and 2pm on Tuesday.
Floridians lined up along the road waiting for their turn to enter the conservation park in a line that spanned more than a two and a half hour wait. Video Here. While the wait was long, for many it was worth it and for those residents that needed sand but didn’t get an opportunity to get them, this is one location to look out for the next time around.
In South Tampa evacuation orders were given, mandatory orders for mobile homes, zone A and zone B according to Hillsborough Maps. You can check your location in Hillsborough’s 2022 Hurricane Evacuation Assessment Tool.
As of September 28th 11:20 am, hurricane Ian continued to head towards central Florida as a category 4 hurricane and looked like making landfall somewhere near Lee County. Although this trajectory can change prior to landfall.
According to reports, Governor DeSantis made all tolls free to help cope with evacuations. During a press conference he also stated, “We have over 176 shelters opened state-wide, including more than 50 special needs shelters and more will likely be added as the storm progresses to other parts of the state. If you want to look at shelters, go to floridadisaster.org/shelters.”
Governor DeSantis continued, saying, “We now have 58 school districts that have announced school closures due to this storm, go to fldoe.org/storminfo to get the most up to date information on school closures.”
“There’s now over 30,000 personnel stationed and standing by to help with power restoration and that’s across all of our utilities, our electric coops. Right now, in the state of Florida, there’s about 8,000 customers that are out of power, that’s mostly in Southeast Florida due to some of the things that we have seen, but of course that number will be into the millions relatively shortly… As a result of hurricane Ian making land fall and then working its way through the state of Florida.”
What can you do to prepare?
- Have ample water and fill your bathtub with water before the storm.
- Have plenty of food and non-perishables.
- Bring in your pets, you pots of plants and any lose objects that may potentially be turned into a projectile.
- Fill up your cars with full tank of gas
- Have a generator handy on the side with at least 5 gallons of gasoline or diesel to power with.
- Have propane tanks to cook on the grill if the power is out.
- If you have a garage, bring your vehicles in to avoid flying projectiles.
- Prepare your food for the next week and for your pets if prepping is needed.
- If you have a kids swimming pool, you can add sod to it for your pets most needed moments.
- If you can’t bring in your trash cans, tip them over and pin the lid to the wall of your home.
- Board your windows if you don’t have hurricane proof windows.
- Try to have your trees trimmed if you believe they may become a danger to your home.
- Use GasBuddy to find locations that have not sold out of Gasoline.
- You can use www.expedia.com/florida to find hotels and available vacancies.
