{"id":12799,"date":"2021-07-02T20:38:07","date_gmt":"2021-07-03T00:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=12799"},"modified":"2021-07-02T20:38:22","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T00:38:22","slug":"polk-county-watching-hurricane-elsa-carefully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/07\/02\/polk-county-watching-hurricane-elsa-carefully\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County watching Hurricane Elsa carefully"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Polk County is “getting ready to get ready,” county Emergency Management Director Paul Womble told county commissioners Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tropical Storm Elsa strengthened Friday into the first Atlantic hurricane of 2021, and early forecasts showed the storm possibly crossing the state near Polk late Monday or early Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Womble said that the local Emergency Operations Center isn\u2019t anticipating Elsa to grow into a major hurricane based on the forecast and discussions with meteorologists. The EOC is working with the state and the National Hurricane Center to have a better idea of what to expect throughout the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy this time, tomorrow,\u201d Womble said. \u201cWe should have a much better idea on what\u2019s going to happen, but we\u2019re still 24-plus hours away. They always say their confidence is low but even now, it\u2019s lower than normal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Womble said there\u2019s a two out of three chance that the center of the hurricane will stay in the cone that is shown in hurricane center prediction graphics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe cone is just where the center could be in the specified time,\u201d Womble said. \u201cDon\u2019t use the cone to know risks and threats from wind, from rain, from surge, from tornadoes. It is just where could the center be, how big is it going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the current forecast, meteorologists predict Polk could feel tropical storm conditions Monday night into Tuesday depending on the storm\u2019s track. Womble said the EOC will be answering phones throughout the weekend to deal with questions and concerns regarding community needs in preparation for the storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t shelter for tropical storms,\u201d Womble said. \u201cBut we get them ready, and that\u2019s the case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the storm is at the hurricane level early next week, Womble said that the EOC is prepared to dedicate more space to sheltering because of social distancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polk County is “getting ready to get ready,” county Emergency Management Director Paul Womble told county commissioners Friday. Tropical Storm Elsa strengthened Friday into the first Atlantic hurricane of 2021,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[700],"class_list":["post-12799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-polk-county-watching-hurricane-elsa-carefully"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}