Brevard County prepares for Isaias
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Brevard County is gearing up for the impact of Isaias this weekend.
At Port Canaveral, things are already secured and boats and ships have been moved.
But Brevard County officials say based on the current projections for the storm, they're holding off on closures, evacuations and shelter openings for now.
As Isaias inches toward Florida, the year of canceled plans continues.
First, there was the pandemic and now this storm.
"We were supposed to be here until Sunday. Yeah, the storm ruined the whole party," said Isabel Jimenez, who's camping at Jetty Park from Fort Lauderdale.
"Well, it’s definitely putting a hamper on our camping."
Campers at Jetty Park are forced to clear out by noon Saturday because of the storm that Brevard County officials are watching closely.
"We noticed the storm tweaked a little bit more to the west earlier today so certainly got our attention," said Brevard County Emergency Management Communications Director Don Walker.
The county is not calling for evacuations or opening shelters right now, but everything is ready to go just in case.
"We’ve got employees on standby that are ready to man any shelters that we might open. We’ve identified the shelters we would open," Walker said.
Due to the coronavirus, shelters would hold half the number of families.
To offset that, the county would open double the number of shelters. Not to mention "we would be prepared to do health screenings, temperature checks, social distancing," Walker said.
The number of people inside the Emergency Operations Center is set to drop from its normal 250 people for a big storm down to just 10.
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Most employees are working remotely.
The county hopes the storm sticks to coming through mostly overnight Saturday into Sunday.
Campers are hoping for the same.
"I don’t think it’s going to be that bad. We’re going to head back home and put this in storage and hopefully come back on Monday," said Robert Garrett, from Port St. John.
County officials say if they change their plans, the earliest that would happen is Saturday morning when they have a better idea of the track of the storm.