OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – It’s never too early to think about preparing for hurricane season according to the Osceola Emergency Management Team. That’s why they held their annual training session on Thursday.
On the way to catching the No. 26 bus to Poinciana, 71-year-old retiree Cynthia St. Charles shared her experience with News 6 about the severe flooding on South Hoagland Road in Osceola County after Hurricane Ian.
“All the way down, where you see that white car is coming up, was flooded,” she recalled. “Well, I remember the streets were filled with water, there was no traffic, they had to close the street off.”
News 6 was in the Good Samaritan Village-Kissimmee area during the aftermath of several storms that caused severe damage. The emergency management team is keeping a close eye on this part of the county.
Bill Litton, the Emergency Management director for Osceola County, allowed News 6 to observe part of their annual all-day hurricane emergency training exercise. The team spent the day simulating a storm and planning their response.
“It’s a Category 3 storm coming from the eastern approach at the Indian River/Brevard County lines, which is our worst-case scenario here in the county,” Litton explained.
Part of the training involves learning to use new technology that will facilitate faster communication and a paperless system.
“We’ve upgraded the WEB EOC to the new format WEB EOC Nexus,” he noted. This upgrade includes increased communication capabilities and newer boards to track shelters and inbound calls at the citizens information center.
St. Charles expressed her hope for effective preparation.
“We will wait and see. People say things, but they don’t follow through with it. The county says they are doing a lot of preparations though. The county needs to do something about the drainage and make sure that the water doesn’t rise and it runs off,” she said.
Residents of Osceola County can register for Alert Osceola at alertosceola.org to receive emergency weather notifications.