After 13 months of chaos in the form of floods, tornadoes and hurricanes, Leon County is putting all their lessons learned to use as they prepare for the upcoming hurricane season, which starts in just a few weeks.
At the upcoming county commission meeting on May 13, county staff will present a status report discussing the implementations of recommendations from the “Bicentennial Storm,” the May 10 tornado outbreak and Hurricane Helene for the upcoming 2025 hurricane season.
The agenda item will require little action from the commission, only needing to be accepted, but gives a good look to local residents into how Leon County has adapted because of the natural disasters and how the county continues to maintain its “Hurricane Strong” status.
After each natural disaster, staff created after-action reports that compile findings from the storms. They lead to the creation of recommendations the county can work to implement in the future.
Between the three, there was a total of 44 findings and 41 recommendations and county staff have already implemented 39 of those recommendations. The last two deal with disaster pay and will be brought up at the county’s budget workshop in June.
Here are some highlights:
High-visibility barricades and signage
Chainsaw and debris operations
Damage-assessment team resource guides
Disaster housing strategy update
Portal and app capacity upgrades
Youth preparedness outreach
Staff came up with five key elements for the upcoming hurricane season with the focus being on shelters, housing and constant communication with residents to keep them up to date:
“Be Leon Ready” enrollment campaign: A year-round outreach initiative seeking to boost manufactured housing and mobile home registrations in the opt-in text-alert system and Citizens Connect app before the end of hurricane season.
Face-to-face trainings in high-density manufactured housing and mobile home communities: County Emergency Management and Community and Media Relations will schedule on-site tornado-safety workshops in parts of Leon County with the greatest concentrations of manufactured housing and mobile homes. Sessions will explain wind vulnerabilities and cover safe-room options, evacuation timing, maintaining multiple alert paths, the importance of relocating to site-built homes of friends or family when a watch is issued and enrollment in Florida’s Special Needs Registry to safeguard medically dependent residents.
Countywide direct-mail guide: The 2025-26 edition of the Disaster Survival Guide has expanded to include manufactured-home wind risks, tie down checks and post-warning actions.
Emergency Transportation Assistance: Leon County will continue working closely with 2-1-1 Big Bend, the State of Florida and other transportation providers, such as the Uber and Lyft ride-hailing services, to promote and make ride-share access available during hurricane evacuations.
Message consistency across channels: The county will work to push unified directives across all channels such as flyers, mail, texts, social media and more.
If you go
The county commission meeting begins 3 p.m. on May 13, with a public hearing at 6 p.m., at the Leon County Courthouse, 301 S. Monroe St.
Arianna Otero is the trending and breaking news reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact her via email at AOtero@tallahassee.com and follow her on X: @ari_v_otero.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon County looked to past disasters to develop new hurricane measures