St. Lucie County Urges Residents To Plan for a Stormy Weekend
- LUCIE COUNTY – St. Lucie County’s Emergency Management officials continue to work with local and state agencies to assess any protective actions that might be required for local residents relating to Hurricane Dorian. However, it is still too early to know what impact Dorian will have or when it might impact our area.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the earliest St. Lucie County would be impacted by tropical force-type winds would be late Saturday/early Sunday. St. Lucie County crews have begun initiating their hurricane preparedness plans. All St. Lucie County residents are strongly urged to do the same. Now is the time to make sure you have plenty of water, non-perishable food, medicine, fuel, batteries and other supplies.
St. Lucie County government offices remain open during normal hours of operation for the rest of this week. However, the St. Lucie County Tax Collector will closed the Walton Road location (1664 SE Walton Road, Port St. Lucie) at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 29 and will remain closed Friday, Aug. 30 to allow staff the ability to secure equipment and properly prepare all three offices for any potential damage. Staff will be moved to the Fort Pierce (2300 Virginia Ave.) and Tradition (10264 SW Village Parkway) locations and will be serving the public on Friday until 4 p.m., closing early to allow for final hurricane preparations at both offices. All services will be provided on Friday, including road tests at the Fort Pierce office.
St. Lucie Public Schools will remain on their normal schedules. However, all athletic events scheduled for Friday, Aug. 30 have been moved to Thursday, Aug. 29.
St. Lucie County Veteran Services have canceled scheduled transportation to the VA Medical Center in West Palm Beach for Friday, Aug. 30.
While it is still too early to decide if general population shelters will be needed, residents who might need to use the pet-friendly shelter or the special medical needs shelter are encouraged to pre-register at www.stlucieco.gov/eoc.
St. Lucie County’s Public Works staff has already begun staging equipment and lowering canal levels where they can. Crews are also checking the drainage systems to make sure they are debris-free.
Waste Pro garbage and recycling collections will continue on its normal schedule, but residents and businesses are asked to no longer put out yard debris and tree limbs to prevent these materials from becoming projectiles and/or blocking drains.
If Hurricane Dorian continues its current path, St. Lucie County expects to activate its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) before the end of the week. Once the EOC is fully activated, updates will be provided on WQCS 88.9 FM and on the county’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/StLucieGov) at 8 a.m., noon and 5 p.m. St. Lucie County’s Information Hotline, 772-460-HELP (4357), will become activated once the ECO is activated.
For more information about the St. Lucie County’s preparations and precautionary measures visit:www.stlucieco.gov/hurricane or on social media @StLucieGov.