Florida News That Impacts You – October 18th, 2024
Bottom Line: Your daily recap of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida.
- With early voting set to begin Monday, and Election Day only 18 days away, Governor DeSantis has signed an executive order providing greater latitude to election officials in 11 Hurricane Milton impacted counties to conduct the election including Indian River and St. Lucie. Early voting is being extended in Taylor and Pinellas Counties and deadlines have been modified for election supervisors to designate polling locations and to send out vote by mail ballots. Poll worker training mandates have also been suspended in the impacted counties. The governor indicated that the Florida Division of Elections will work closely with the impacted counties on the implementation of the order and the conducting of the election.
- As the National Weather Service continued its survey work on Thursday it was determined that an additional three tornadoes touched down locally during Hurricane Milton, including an EF2 tornado that was on the ground for a total of 31 miles from Martin to St. Lucie County. The new findings brought the total number of locally identified tornadoes to 18 thus far.
- Indian River County has waived all building permit fees as many homeowners will need to repair and in some cases rebuild properties following the impact of tornadoes during Milton. 342 homes are known to have suffered damage in the county during the storm including 51 that are classified as “destroyed” according to FEMA.
- Another cool and windy day today with wind gusting in the upper 20’s (mph). It’ll be mostly cloudy with and highs near 80 which is a little cooler than usual for this date. The National Hurricane Center is tracking two systems. A disturbance in the Atlantic passing by the Leeward Islands now has only a 10% chance of development (lower than yesterday) and is not a concern for Florida or the US. A second disturbance in the Western Caribbean Sea has a 50% chance of developing (higher than yesterday) and it’s expected to cross through the Yucatan Peninsula over into the Pacific.
- Gas prices remained flat again on Thursday. The average price for regular unleaded in Florida is currently $3.10 per gallon. In Palm Beach County the average price is $3.25 per gallon, in Martin the average is $3.14 and in Indian River County the average is $3.08 per gallon.