8/30/2019 3:00pm
HURRICANE DORIAN UPDATE
City of Lakeland Focusing on Preparation
LAKELAND, FL (August 30, 2019) – The City of Lakeland will be closed on Monday, September 2nd in recognition for the Labor Day Holiday. City offices will remain closed on Tuesday, September 3rd in preparation for Hurricane Dorian that is expected to make landfall sometime early Tuesday. This includes park facilities, Cleveland Heights Golf Course, cemeteries and libraries.
The City of Lakeland has published a web page as a source for local information on the storm and it can be found by visiting: www.lakelandgov.net/hurricane. The page has a number of features including the latest in storm bulletins and quick links to resources like the Lakeland Electric outage tracker map, sand bag locations, shelter locations and closings. Lakeland residents are encouraged to prepare and take the necessary precautions. The most up-to-date information on Hurricane Dorian can be found on the National Hurricane Center website:https://www.nhc.noaa.gov.
The City is in prep mode but once the storm hits, all the focus will be on restoration. If you happen to lose power during the storm, please remember that as power is restored with the initial focus on public safety, schools and emergency facilities. Then power will be restored to areas where the largest number of customers can be reenergized with the quickest effort. Unfortunately, those small pockets impacting a few customers without power are often the last the be restored because of the extensive work required to get a few customers back on line. Additional information on power restoration and outage notifications can be found on www.lakelandelectric.com.
Solid Waste collection will be suspended for those routes normally collected on Monday and Tuesday. These routes will be rescheduled for pick-up following the storm pending safe conditions. Solid Waste crews will work Saturday until the closing of the County landfill which is estimated to close at 4 p.m. In restoration mode, please remember not to block fire hydrants and backflow preventers with debris during clean-up efforts.
The Polk County EOC will move to a Level 1 Full Activation on Sunday and will maintain the 24-hour operations beginning Monday until further notice. For reference, Governor DeSantis has initiated a State wide Declaration of Emergency and the County is expected to take similar action either today or this weekend. The City of Lakeland will activate the emergency operation center once tropical force winds impact the area.
The Polk County Landfill is scheduled to be closed Monday and Tuesday. Polk County Public Schools are closed Monday-Wednesday but these announced closings can change as the storm track becomes more definitive.
The City of Lakeland will be updating media channels as additional information comes forward. Please follow the City’s social media by searching @lakelandgov on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Nextdoor, Snapchat and Youtube.
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