News Cast September 25th:
Okeechobee County Schools will be closed Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Helene.
All activities at middle and high schools will cease at 6 pm.
Elementary schools will operate as usual on Wednesday.
Sand bags are available at the public works department on NW 2nd Avenue and at the Glades County road department.
Meteorologist Jamie Rhome said the storm is very big and impacts will be felt for hundreds of miles. It is predicted to be 250 miles wide at landfall.
He said the impacts will be from rain and storm surge.
Okeechobee county see up to six inches of localized rain under current forecasts and up to 60 mile per hour winds.
All of South Florida including Okeechobee is under a tropical storm warning.
Okeechobee can expect the usual additional traffic on route 70 and there is a community information call line at (863) 763-3536.
Highlands and Osceola County also closed schools.
Three juveniles were charged with burglary to an occupied dwelling with masks after an incident at the Big Lake Inn at 1012 South Parrott Avenue.
City Police found the youths trying to break into an apartment. They wore masks and they found three guns, two on one of the suspects.
The children’s ages 16 and 17.
The police report said the suspects knew the people living in the apartment and may have targeted another teen. One of the suspects and the teen living in the apartment were dating the same girl.
A 2-year-old autistic child died after he got out of an apartment complex unattended and drowned in a pond.
Sheriff Eric Flowers said the child popped out a screen after the father opened the window. When he turned his back to feed another child, the toddler got out of the apartment falling from the second floor into a row of foliage below.
The child then walked about 30 yards to the pond and apparently drowned.
The Desert Inn in Yeehaw will be leveled to the ground soon.
The Osceola County building department issued a demolition permit to South Florida land clearing for the historic site. It must be used by November 19th.
The Inn was mostly destroyed when a tractor trailer drove through the front of the building back in 2019.
Kenansville will also have its first doctor’s office in decades as the building department approved a zoning map amendment and permit for the office at 1340 Canoe Creek Road.
Okeechobee unemployment rates fell slightly in August to four percent. The state rate was 3.7 percent.
Labor Economist Jimmy Heckman said Hendry had the highest rate in the state at 6.5 percent.
Last August Okeechobee had 3.8 percent unemployment.
The report said the work force In Okeechobee continued to grow by 215 people to 18,310. In August 736 Okeechobee residents received unemployment benefits.
Around the area Osceola had 4.1 percent, St. Lucie 4.3 percent, and Indian River 4.4 percent.
An Okeechobee man was injured when he drove his 2009 Impala through a motel room in Aiken, South Carolina.
Marco Lopez Hernandez will be facing criminal charges for the incident at the quality Inn off I-20.
Aiken County Deputies said they suspect the driver was impaired.
The injuries were not life threatening.
Criminal charges would relate to malicious criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
Deputies also impounded the sedan.