State Troopers, County Deputies and Rescue Peronnel were kept busy last night by a multi-vehicle accident on Highway 27 in Sebring near the Lowe’s store. Troopers listed the call at 6:44pm, and lanes were closed to southbound traffic for hours as victims from what witnesses say was a motorcycle-truck collision were transported to area hospitals and the scene secured. One required an Aeromed out of the scene. And details are still sketchy about another wreck on Highway 98 just east of 27 about 11:30 last night. At least one more hospitalization came out of that wreck.
County government personnel were scrambling yesterday afternoon to get the word out that tomorrow’s Covid-19 vaccinations at the Mall had to be cancelled. Rotten weather up north caused this week’s shipments into Highlands County to be delayed, and no vaccines mean – well, no vaccine. The County says they’re rescheduling THIS Saturday’s appointments to next week. A reminder – if you’re over 65 and registered, haven’t yet had your first dose but did not get either a robocall, text or email at the beginning of the month confirming you’re on the County’s waiting list, you may have been lost in that first-week online scrum in January and need to re-register. Log on to myvaccine.fl.gov, choose Highlands County and get in line by that route. The County said this week on its Facebook page that we’re still working our way through the locally-generated list, but progress IS being made. – 2,604 doses went into arms last week, 438 before the County’s supplies ran out.
We passed a dubious milestone yesterday when Highlands County crossed past 7,000 confirmed cases of the virus – 292 of our neighbors have lost their lives since last spring due to complications of the bug … 33 just since the beginning of this month.
The Highlands County Fair winds down this weekend – while official gate counts aren’t yet out, informal word from the Fair is that many nights have seen increases in year-over-year attendance so far as pent-up demand for an event to attend and good weather combined for a good crowd. The Fair runs through tomorrow evening. School’s out again today, so maybe the kids can enjoy the fair. Cl;asses will resume again Monday.
Travelling around the south side of Sebring could be a bit on the pokey side for a while as construction gets underway on the next phase of the Sebring Parkway. The northbound lane on Sebring Parkway between Desoto Road and Youth Care Lane is now closed – and will stay closed for around 6 weeks. For today, the southbound lanes will also close from roughly 8am till 2pm for road striping. Detours from the north and south are posted – or, route yourself around the area heading in and out of downtown if you can.