Aug. 31--BARTOW -- Polk County officials said Friday they're as ready as they can be for the arrival of Hurricane Dorian and its aftermath.
"We're planning for the worst and hoping for the best. We're prepared," Paul Womble, the county's director of emergency management, told reporters Friday morning after updating the Polk County Commission on hurricane preparations.
During that County Commission meeting, commissioners voted unanimously to close all county facilities on Tuesday and Wednesday to allow staff to deal with hurricane issues. County facilities were already scheduled to close on Monday for Labor Day.
The action means the regularly scheduled County Commission meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday will be cancelled. Business on that meeting's agenda will move to the next regularly scheduled meeting on Sept. 17, but the commission will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. Sept. 9 for a public hearing and initial vote on the proposed 2019-20 county budget.
Also cancelled was the county Planning Commission meeting scheduled for 8:50 a.m. Wednesday. The commission also declared a seven-day state of local emergency for the county beginning Friday. It can be renewed in seven-day increments when it expires.
The declaration gives county workers, particularly first responders, or companies contracted by the county the authority to enter private property to deal with threats to public safety and health and to remove debris and other damages affecting the community. It also empowers County Manager Bill Beasley to act outside of normal procedures that might require approval by the county commission, such as spending money, entering into contracts, renting equipment or incurring other financial obligations required to deal with the hurricane.
Beasley told commissioners planning for Dorian has been particularly challenging because the slow moving hurricane could mean high winds and heavy rainfall for days, not a few hours as with Hurricane Charlie in 2004.
Even after the worst wind and rain passes, the cleanup challenge will be significant, Beasley said.
"It could be one or two days; it could take all week," he said. Commission Chairman George Lindsey agreed. "We can hunker down for the event, but we know the cleanup will be horrendous," he said.
Although Dorian is scheduled to make landfall along Florida's east coast as a Category 4 hurricane (wind speeds from 130 to 156 mph), its slow move across the state means it could weaken to as low as a Category 1 (wind speeds from 74 to 95 mph) by the time it arrives in Polk, Womble said.
That means Dorian's biggest threat to the area will likely come from rainfall and subsequent flooding rather than wind damage, he said. "The challenge for this storm is that it's moving slowly, and it's slowing down," Womble said. "The slower the storm, the more rainfall we're going to get."
The flooding risk is elevated because the ground is already saturated because of heavy rainfall earlier in August, said Jay Jarvis, director of the county's Roads and Drainage Division. The hurricane will halt garbage collections during the storm, and the county landfill will be busy handling debris from the storm for weeks, said Ana Wood, the director of waste and recycling who oversees the landfill.
Trash collection will not get back on its regular schedule until the week of Sept. 16. As soon as tropical storm winds abate, making it safe to operate trucks and other tall equipment, county workers will be on the roads pushing debris to the side to clear the road for emergency vehicles, Jarvis said.
Once that is accomplished, the division will activate contracts with two private companies to remove debris, he added. The county will also have drop-off sites in North and South Lakeland for the public to dispose of yard and other debris on their properties, Jarvis said. At the request of Commissioner Martha Santiago, Beasley and Jarvis agreed to look for a public drop-off site in Northeast Polk.
Chief Robert Weech of Polk County Fire Rescue said fire stations across the county will have two shifts working simultaneously from shortly before Dorian arrives through the storm event. Weech and Major Ian Floyd of the Polk County Sheriff's Office said firefighters and deputies will respond to calls involving life-threatening situations even during the middle of the storm.
Because of the wind danger, however, Fire Rescue cannot respond with large trucks but will use smaller automobiles, Weech said.
"At no time will we stop responding," he said. "We will be ready. We will protect."
Kevin Bouffard can be reached at [email protected] or at 863-802-7591.
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