Are You Ready for Another SWFL Summer???

Anyone who lives in SW Florida year round knows from first hand experience, our summers can be treacherous. Sweltering heat, unyielding baking sunshine, daily torrential rains, tropical storms and hurricanes. It’s important to be prepared. You should have a 5 day supply of bottle water and canned foods. Keep your prescriptions filled and have any needed medical supplies and first aid kits supplied and ready to go.

If you’re SMART Phone Savy, there are several APS available to watch the weather, flood zones and evacuation routes.

Amy Hoyt works for Lee County as the GIS Manager and she’s responsible for creating maps for everything from Lee County Job Sprawl to Evacuation Routes for our residents. I met with Amy recently to hear about her duties and to learn more about her department. In addition to Amy’s mapping responsibilities she also provides mapping and GIS assistance to support teams throughout Lee County, but is most proud of the implementation of LEE EVAC, a FREE, high tech evacuation and flood zone AP for smart phone users. Once downloaded onto your Smart Phone, you can enter your specific address or the address of your loved ones to see if there’s a need for them to evacuate. You can check for high risk flood zones and find the best evacuation route, should you need to use one. 

Smart Phone Aps are extremely useful in the event of power outages. They provide online radio stations and weather watching applications. Another very useful Smart Phone Ap is ACCUWeather which provides a fully active dopler radar with timeline forecasts. The News-Press also provides a Smart Phone Ap called Hurricane Hub, with latest news, eye reports, resources, official updates, storm names, category updates, opportunities to volunteer and for those interested, they offer historic storm trivia. 

I urge everyone to prepare and install storm shutters before a storm hits. Once a storm hits our shores, it’s too late or nearly impossible to find help. If you know somebody who's in need, please don't leave them by themselves. Let's all do everything we can to have a wonderful and safe summer season.

GET YOUR HURRICANE KITS READY

Recommended Supplies to Include in a Basic Kit:

- Water, one gallon of water per person per day, for drinking and sanitation

- Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food

- Battery-powered radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert, and extra batteries for both

- Flashlight and extra batteries

- First Aid kit

- Whistle to signal for help

- Infant formula and diapers, if you have an infant

- Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation

- Dust mask or cotton t-shirt, to help filter the air

- Plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place

- Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities

- Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)