Information from the Flagler County EOC Press Conference

Good afternoon, Hurricane Ian continues to make its path towards Florida and even Flagler County. As of right now Ian is expected to make landfall in the Tampa Bay / Sarasota area Wednesday night at around 8pm. This storm will bring with it both wind and water concerns for Flagler County as it heads towards us.

This is a very large storm and around the time of landfall, dangerous winds may extend almost 200 miles out from the center.

What this means is; we could potentially experience winds over 40 mph as early as 4 pm tomorrow. However, it is more likely that we would see those Tropical Storm Force Winds starting a few hours later, closer to 3am. Those winds would then continue through midday Friday, yes I said Friday! Though they could potentially still be around as late as midnight on Friday.

We also still have the potential for hurricane force winds for a few hours Friday morning; as well as isolated tornados over next few days.

Now I would like to talk about the water risks.

The first issue that I would like to highlight is the fact that the national weather service predicts that we may have anywhere from 10 – 15 inches of rain from Ian; with the bulk of that occurring from Wednesday evening through Thursday evening.

This rain, on its own, will likely cause flooding issues in many areas of our county.

In addition to the rain, we are already in the midst of a seasonally higher tide cycle, and we can expect an additional coastal storm surge, from Ian, of up to 4 feet.

This will be of particular concern at high tide on the Atlantic Coast, in the intracoastal and connected waterways, and well as the Crescent and Dead Lake area.

The highest tides are expected on the Atlantic Coast at around, 11 am/pm on Thursday, and midday on Friday.

The highest tides are expected along the Intracoastal Waterway around, 4am/pm on Thursday, and 5am/pm Friday.

Flagler County Governments, including all five of our municipalities have been hard at work preparing for the approach of Ian.

Many people have asked for a weather related point of reference to compare this flooding to. The best example that the weather service suggests is 2017’s Hurricane Irma, and if your home or business was flooded then, you can likely expect to see flooding with Ian too. However, because every storm is different, please don’t assume that Irma flood levels are a guarantee.

Sandbagging sites, some of which have been in place since Sunday will cease operations this evening. We would like to thank our county agencies, city agencies, volunteers and Sheriff’s Office for their support of these operations.

County staff, Flagler Schools staff, the state Health Department, and volunteers have been working hard to prepare evacuation shelters.

This morning, we issued a press release sharing that all residents east of I-95 should be prepared to evacuate. At this time, we are comfortable being more specific and reducing that recommendation to prepared to evacuate to those residents and businesses in:

Mobile Homes and RV’s Countywide

Zone A, our the barrier island from Flagler Beach to Marineland

The following low-lying areas in Zone B

The Bulowville neighborhoods east of John Anderson Highway and the

Palm Drive and Lambert Avenue Neighborhoods

And

Non-elevated homes in the low-lying areas of our Zone F, which is the area surrounding and near Crescent Lake and Dead Lake to include Daytona North.

At this time we have not order an evacuation, but want residents living in these areas to be prepared no later than tonight as we will likely order the evacuations tomorrow.

Tomorrow, once we solidify the evacuation and sheltering open times the Emergency Operations Center will announce the final areas under the evacuation order and the time which shelters will open.

We always recommend that your first choice for an evacuation destination be a friend or family member’s home or a hotel or motel outside of the evacuation area. However, if needed shelters will be available once we order the evacuation.

The general population shelter will be Bunnell Elementary School and our special medical needs shelter will be Rymfire Elementary School. However we do not currently have a definite opening time; though it will coincide with the evacuation order. Please do not go to the shelters until we make our announcement tomorrow.

Flagler County EOC’s Call Center will remain open until 5pm today, and will be open 24 hours a day, starting at 7am on Wednesday and can be reached at 386-313-4200; or even better visit our website at FlaglerCounty.gov/emergency or look for FlaglerEOC on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

I can’t say it enough: Please complete your preparedness activities tonight, and if you live in a mobile home or recreational vehicle, or in the identified Zone A, B, or F areas, be prepared to evacuate tomorrow morning.

Thank you.