{"id":50603,"date":"2024-10-07T16:58:24","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T20:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=50603"},"modified":"2024-10-07T16:58:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T20:58:30","slug":"city-of-lakeland-hurricane-milton-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/10\/07\/city-of-lakeland-hurricane-milton-update\/","title":{"rendered":"CITY OF LAKELAND HURRICANE MILTON UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hurricane Milton has increased intensity and is now a Category 5 Hurricane with sustained winds over 160mp.&nbsp; The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a 5-category rating system used to measure the strength of a hurricane and estimate the potential damage it may cause:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Category 1:\u00a0Winds of 74\u201395 mph, causing minimal damage<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Category 2:\u00a0Winds of 96\u2013110 mph, causing moderate damage<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Category 3:\u00a0Winds of 111\u2013129 mph, causing extensive damage<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Category 4:\u00a0Winds of 130\u2013156 mph, causing devastating damage<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Category 5:\u00a0Winds of 157+ mph, causing catastrophic damage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/city-of-lakeland.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36130\" style=\"width:279px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/city-of-lakeland.png 400w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/city-of-lakeland-300x225.png 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hurricanes that reach Category 3 or higher are considered major hurricanes and have the potential to cause significant loss of life and damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center predict the storm will strike Florida&#8217;s western Gulf Coast as a major hurricane in the middle of the week, likely later Wednesday. At this point, forecasters anticipate the hurricane will have maximum sustained winds of 145 mph around noon Wednesday and 125 mph just before midnight, and landfall is slated to happen at some time in between.&nbsp; Based on the current forecast models, Lakeland and Polk County will be heavily impacted by the storm with high winds, and heavy rainfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">City facilities will be open for business as usual on Tuesday, October 8, 2024.\u00a0 City officials will be monitoring Hurricane Milton very carefully.\u00a0 Decisions regarding business hours for the remainder of the week will take place as the storm path becomes more clearly defined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In anticipation of the storm, the City of Lakeland has opened a Lakeland sandbag location, adding to the list of Polk County sandbag sites. Residents can get up to 10 sandbags per home on a first come, first served basis while supplies last. Locations are open 8 a.m. \u2013 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Mulberry\/South Lakeland \u2013 Loyce E. Harpe Park, 500 W. Carter Road<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lakeland \u2013 8970 N. Campbell Road<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lakeland &#8211; 315 North Eastside Drive<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fort Meade \u2013 1061 NE 9th St.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Frostproof \u2013 350 County Road 630A<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Auburndale \u2013 1701 Holt Road<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Dundee \u2013 805 Dr. Martin Luther King St. SW<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Poinciana Park \u2013 5109 Allegheny Road<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Solid Waste will be impacted once winds get to 40 mph in the Lakeland area.&nbsp; The Polk County landfill closes once winds get to 40 mph so that will hinder operations.&nbsp; City of Lakeland solid waste is asking residents to not put yard waste curbside in anticipation that it will be picked up before the impacts of Hurricane Milton.&nbsp; Solid Waste crews have over 100 residents on the list for bulk pick-up and with current staffing and regular garbage collection demands, yard waste will not be picked up before Hurricane Milton so please do not put it curbside and wait until after Hurricane Milton passes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Polk County Public Schools has announced that schools will be closed Tuesday, October 8 through Thursday, October 10, 2024, ahead of Hurricane Milton making landfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mutual Aid line crews will be arriving and staging at Tigertown in preparation for power restoration efforts. The City of Lakeland has already notified the large private debris haulers that are on contract to assist during restoration efforts once the storm has passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lakeland Electric\u2019s smart meter system lets us know&nbsp;the moment a home or business is out of power without needing to call. This helps in response times and gets customers back online as quickly and safely as possible.&nbsp; Customers can view the outage map by visiting:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/lakelandelectric.com\/storms-and-outages\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/lakelandelectric.com\/storms-and-outages<\/a>. If a customer is experiencing an outage not shown on the outage map, please call Lakeland Electric&#8217;s dedicated automated system 863-834-4248. If you have provided Lakeland Electric your phone number, the&nbsp;automated system can&nbsp;recognize the&nbsp;number and&nbsp;match&nbsp;it to your address to help locate outages quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lakeland Electric customers are automatically enrolled to receive notifications if there is an outage in your area and notifications when your power is restored. You can receive alerts by phone, text, or email to keep you informed and help make your life a little easier.\u00a0Customers can\u00a0view or change their registration\u00a0by logging into their Lakeland Electric account. Go to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lakelandelectric.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">www.lakelandelectric.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hurricane Milton has increased intensity and is now a Category 5 Hurricane with sustained winds over 160mp.&nbsp; The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a 5-category rating system used to measure&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":36130,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/city-of-lakeland.png","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7591],"tags":[9972],"class_list":["post-50603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-of-lakeland","tag-city-of-lakeland-hurricane-milton-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50603","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=50603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50604,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50603\/revisions\/50604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}