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County emergency management urges preparation despite forecast for below‑normal hurricane activity
Summary
Lake County emergency management briefed trustees on activation levels, sheltering, Alert Lake signup and resources; staff urged residents to prepare even though forecasts project a below‑normal 2026 season, pointing to past impactful storms in quiet years.
Meghan, director of the Lake County Office of Emergency Management, told the Water Authority trustees that the office’s goals are “to protect life, protect property, and to protect the environment” and reviewed how the county organizes emergency response through its Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
She explained the EOC’s four activation levels — daily monitoring, enhanced monitoring, partial activation when specific support is requested, and full 24/7 activation during impact — and said staff coordinate operations, logistics, planning, recovery and finance during events. “If we are past that recovery phase, we focus on mitigation,” Meghan said, describing work to reduce future risk through planning and grant‑funded projects.
On forecasts, Meghan said Colorado State University projects about 11 named storms with roughly five hurricanes and two major hurricanes in 2026, while the National Hurricane Center gives a range of 8–14 named storms; overall, she said Lake County’s outlook is “below normal” but added that a single storm can still cause significant local impact. “We always try to tell our residents… even if it’s gonna be a below normal season, it’s still important to be prepared,” she said, noting Hurricane Michael and Andrew as examples of severe impacts from lower‑activity years.
She urged residents to prepare household disaster kits, make evacuation plans (especially residents in mobile or manufactured housing), and plan for pets. Meghan pointed trustees and the public to the county resources: the Citizens Information Line at (352) 253‑9999 and the local alert system, Alert Lake (alertlake.com), which sends direct phone alerts to subscribers.
In a brief question‑and‑answer period trustees asked about inflatable flood barriers ("tiger dams"). Meghan said the county does not own such equipment but can request it from the Florida Division of Emergency Management and that the county has not historically struggled to obtain that resource.
