Yes, just in case your neighbors jumped the gun … trash collection out in the County is one day late for the rest of the week. Normal Wednesday pickups are tomorrow, Thursday will be Friday.
Good news! Storm debris pickup in the County from Hurricane Milton is officially complete. If that sounds tongue in cheek, it’s really not – FEMA had given local entities until February 10 for reimbursement of expenses for cleanup, so we finished 50 days early without it being on our nickel. If you’re wondering why it took as long as it did, 127,820 cubic yards of vegetation, construction debris and hazardous waste got picked up in 3,954 loads from the time the operation started until December 22, when the County declared the job done.
This is the last week for face-to-face assistance from FEMA representatives to apply or check the status of applications for assistance related to Hurricane Milton. FEMA will close the Disaster Recovery Center at the Bert J. Harris Jr. Agricultural Center at 7 p.m. THIS Saturday, Jan. 4.
We’re in dry season now, but the rainy season’s only a few months away. The Central Florida Regional Planning Commission is holding a Community Workshop next Saturday at the Lake Placid Government Center on Highway 27 north to share ideas and take comments on what we need to do do improve our response to extreme rainfall. The County, along with Sebring, Lake Placid and Avon Park are partnering with the Commission from 9:30 till 11:30am next Saturday.
Florida’s economy continued to grow at a faster pace than the national economy in 2024, according to Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Forecasting. According to Snaith’s latest report, Florida’s unemployment rate is 0.8 percentage points lower than the national rate and job growth remains at 1.4%. Florida’s economy has been outpacing the nation since after the COVID pandemic in 2020, according to Snaith, in part, because of the state’s continued population growth.