Sen. Scott urges hurricane preparedness: 'You have to do your part'

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - County, state and federal officials are opening hurricane season with a warning: be ready, or be sorry.

"Everybody here is going to work their butt off to keep you alive. But you have to do your part," said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

Scott held a press conference in St. Pete Beach to urge Floridians to be ready.

"But the odds are somewhere in our state we're going to have a landfall," he said.

NOAA is predicting a busier than normal hurricane season, featuring between 17 and 25 named storms, compared to an average of 14.

But no one can no where a storm is going to hit, until it does. Florida learned that the hard way in 2022, when Hurricane Ian seemed to be on its way to Tampa Bay, but then claimed 150 lives in the Fort Myers area, often people who either didn't follow warnings, or didn't get them in time.

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"It's been over 100 years since Tampa Bay has had a direct hit, from a major hurricane," said State Rep. Berny Jacques (R-Clearwater). "But that's no reason to be complacent. And, in fact, I'm going to knock on wood, at some point, that luck is going to run out."

Pinellas County Emergency managers started their public relations effort today to urge people to gather hurricane kits now, to know where vital information is going to come from, and to believe officials when they say it's time to go.

"In the last few years, we've certainly seen a reduction in the number of people coming to shelters," said Pinellas EOC director Cathie Perkins. "We hope that's the fact that we've done such a good job on educating people that they can go other places. I think there is a complacency, and we have been trying to address that."

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They see some hope in an adjusted hurricane warning system, which the National Hurricane Center will begin releasing in August.

There will still be cones and spaghetti models, but a new graphic will color code where all the different levels of watches and warnings are in place.

"We know that that cone only shows we're at the center of the storm is two-thirds of the time," said Perkins. "So people aren't thinking about the extent of how far out those impacts are. So I think that new graphic does help convey that."

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