News Cast 12/1

ByTaylor

December 1, 2023

News Cast for December 1st:

Let’s keep falls and fires at a minimum this season

Okeechobee County Fire Rescue wants you to stay safe for the holidays.

They put out some tips on how to put up lights, how to maintain your live Christmas tree, and other precautions you should take around the home.

Bureau Chief Keith Borgault said make sure you use a stable surface for your ladders.

“If you are up on a ladder make sure they are plum.  Make sure there is no wiggle to it and is not bouncing off the house.  Place them on solid dirt.  If you put it on concrete the ladder can slide.”

He said always prioritize safety over aesthetics when decorating your home.

Also be sure to keep watering your live Christmas trees and be careful when using candles.

He noted the live trees are very flammable.

“In a matter of seconds that tree can go from having all its needles on it, to being a stick, just in seconds.”

He said it is a good idea to check your smoke detector batteries and not to string extension cord after extension cord when powering your lights.

Florida Dairy farmers are having a tough year.

The costs of running farms remain high while prices have dropped this year.  They have seen increases in things like feed costs, labor costs, and fuel costs in the past year.

Randy Mooney with the National Milk Producers Federation advocates for pricing formula changes.  That debate will come in 2024 as a new farm bill is put together in congress.

Mooney admits there is some optimism among farmers due to growing foreign and domestic markets.

“There is a big future out there in the domestic market and globally.  Dairy farmers aren’t doing well this year.  Inflation hit the farm in 2020 in every aspect of the farm.  Everything we buy has gone up in price.  In 2022 we had higher milk prices that helped to offset that.  In 2023 we still had the high costs but the milk prices went down.  Margins this year are tight or non-existent on the farm.”

Neighboring Osceola county doubled their Sheriff’s K-9 unit last month.

The non-profit Senior Resource Alliance wanted to help find missing and endangered people quicker.

Lawmen said time is of the essence when a person goes missing.

Some 200 adults, many suffering from Alzheimer’s and the same amount of kids go missing in the county each year.

Sheriff Marcos Lopez said time is of the essence when trying to locate these people.

“For the most part we do find them all.  We don’t always use the dogs.  When we do use the dogs, they have a 99 percent success rate.  We do have success as long as time to use the dog to find someone quickly.”

The dogs are trained to target odors.  You create a preservation kit with the person’s scent.  You simply wipe a pad on the persons skin 10 times and place the pad into a jar.  You seal the jar and store it safely and bring it out if the person goes missing.

The two dogs are named Doc and Luke.

ByTaylor