Schools closed, activities canceled due to storm

On Monday, Fletcher High School Principal Dean Ledford announced that all homecoming activities will be postponed until next month. Parents and students were notified of the revised schedule of events. All Duval County schools are closed today and Friday, and all after-school activities are canceled.
The homecoming parade will now be held at 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 24. The Snarl will now take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26, followed by the game at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27. The 2022 Homecoming Dance was rescheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28.
“Due to incoming weather, we are going to move our Homecoming activities,” said Ledford. “No decision has been made at this time
While early models predicted that the “significant storm” would shift west off the coast of Tampa in warmer gulf waters, plans were underway to address the potential for heavy winds, dangerous rip currents, and coastal flooding.
“We’re definitely in preparation mode. We start planning well in advance of hurricane season, so everyone knows the drill, and they’re going through and clearing out ditches, making sure equipment is gassed up, making sure that we have continuity of essential city services and things like that,” said Jacksonville Beach Mayor Chris Hoffman. “One COVID benefit I’m sure a lot of companies are seeing right now is that we can more easily shift to some remote workplace so some of Beaches Energy’s support services can be done remotely, which is great if we have power outages.”
Lt. Max Ervanian with Jacksonville Beach Ocean Rescue said the city was operating under a beach safety alert that was issued last week, warning beachgoers of dangerous surf conditions generated by remnants of Hurricane Fiona.
“In terms of beach and ocean safety, we expect that the increasing winds and heavy rainfall, we’re definitely going to see a change in the ocean conditions which will then result in even rougher conditions than what we’re seeing now. We saw some pretty serious conditions for a prolonged period of time just last week and up through the weekend,” he said. “We project that we will see some form of the same thing with more severe weather conditions.”
Ervanian said last week’s weather was still inviting despite the threat of dangerous surf. Weather systems like Hurricane Ian bring the potential for heavy winds and rain that discourage families from coming to the beach.
“We’re not worried about all of the families and swimmers that would come to the beach on a beautiful day but with rough conditions. We’re worried about those who are going to try to surf or kite board or swim in rough conditions. One is too much when it comes to a drowning, so we definitely are watching that,” he said.
“We’ve been flying red flags and had really rough ocean conditions for almost a week that really churned up the bottom of the ocean. With more rainy, uglier days ahead with Hurricane Ian, we’re going to see even more rough conditions with rough weather conditions. Both factors definitely don’t play well together.”