Lake County residents brace for expected Tropical Storm Debby this weekend

Lake County braces for storm this weekend

Residents in Lake County are bracing for severe weather this weekend as Tropical Storm Debby is forecast to form.

TAVARES, Fla. - Lake County officials said they'd be moving their Emergency Operations Center to "level two," starting Saturday morning, ahead of an expected tropical storm. The Astor community is right on the Saint John's River in Lake County, and it's flooded in the past. But people there say they're not worried, yet.

William Maddox showed us the waterline on his garage. "Kind of where it's a little bit dirty on the garage door, and then if you look at some of the trees, you can kind of see where the water level is, where it's a little bit dark on the base," he said.

Maddox has only been living in Astor for two weeks, and says he's never been through a major storm there. He said he had already started preparing for bad weather. "That full garage has about 85 sandbags already in there," he said.

There is a sandbag location at the Lake County Fire Station on State Road 40, near Astor. It was one of seven the county had set up to assist residents in case of flooding. But longtime locals said the rain itself didn’t worry them, what mattered was how high the river got. "During [Hurricane] Ian, we had up to 15 inches south of us. That in a few days came up here and flooded it for at least six weeks," explained Jerry Vandenboom, an Astor resident.

Megan Milanese, Lake County’s EOC Director, said they were monitoring the storm. At this time, she said they were mainly expecting heavy rains. "So part of that process we do briefings, we do updates with our partners, and we've also decided to open up some sandbag locations for our residents so that they can get prepared ahead of this rainmaking event," she said.

Milanese said they’ve been paying close attention to Astor and the Saint Johns River. "As of now, based on what we've seen from those forecasts, we are not expecting the river to reach the flood stage."

Lake County hasn’t opened any emergency shelters at this time. They have seven sandbag locations currently open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.: