(The Center Square) – Once-in-a-generation snow and ice on the Gulf Coast has led officials to encourage everyone to stay off roads in northwestern Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said for some states it would be business as usual, but not in the Sunshine State.
The National Weather Service is predicting 2 to 4 inches of snow in Pensacola on Tuesday, 2 inches of snow and ice in Panama City and Tallahassee and a half inch of ice and mixed precipitation in Jacksonville.
“This is not typically the type of disaster or emergency situation that we’re used to responding to, but because of that, we’re taking it seriously,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Tallahassee. “As I said, if this were South Dakota or Minnesota, this is probably something that they’re just used to all the time, not something that we’re used to having in the state of Florida.
“If you don’t need to be out, just stay in indoors and let it get taken care of.”
The second-term Republican governor signed an executive order on Monday declaring a state of emergency in northwest Florida for the winter storm. This will allow tolls to be waived on state Department of Transportation roads and bridges and also allow officials to close impassable roads due to the winter storm.
The governor also said the Florida Department of Transportation had 250 workers and nearly 200 pieces of heavy equipment, including 11 snow plows, ready to clear state roads and interstates. He also said that pretreatment of 600 bridges started Monday.
DeSantis also said local road closures were up to county officials and that he dismissed state workers at 1 p.m.
As for the reason why the emergency declaration didn’t include specific counties, Director of Emergency Management Kevin Guthrie said Transportation Department and other state agencies would need to bring in equipment and personnel from south Florida.
“So we wanted to make sure that the governor, the state emergency response team and myself had full access to the range of resources statewide to bring into this particular disaster,” Guthrie said.
The director also said that he’d called county officials and that electric power associations, known as co-ops, could receive state assistance to restore electric service to their primarily rural customers.
Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, canceled committee meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in a news release.
