WOKC Local News – August 19, 2026, 7:40 AM
Transcript
W. O. K. C. News. A fatal crash with W. O. K. C. News. I’m Charles Murphy. The Florida Highway Patrol says a 24 year old Okeechobee man is dead after colliding with a semi truck on Route 70 east and Posey’s Corners. The crash just before noon yesterday at Berman Road, a Kia SUV was headed eastbound. The semi truck was coming out of the landfill southbound. The truck driver says he didn’t see the car coming and drove into the intersection, causing the collision. The truck driver, a 40 year old man from Margate, was not injured. The road was shut down for some time as they investigated. Okeechobee County ministers accepted a $5,000 donation from the Okeechobee Rotary Club. They’ll support purchase of a story walk display for kids on the fitness trail at the Okeechobee Sports Complex. Tony Wiersma with the Rotary announced the grant. The kids actually have a story book and each walk has a little activity they do so that it provides. And we want to continue to support the fitness trail with our machines. And this is one of our projects is to continue each year. And so we’d like to donate $5,000 to these frames and they will add the story walk. Okeechobee’s Economic Development Council continues to work 27 active projects in the past quarter that include a potential 395 jobs and investment of close to $62 million. Five of them are in aviation. Five are industrial. One is an agriculture project. And there are two new manufacturing ventures. Polls are open in Okeechobee on this very quiet local election election day. The only Okeechobee race of note is the race for Congress with former Ben Butler on the ballot. St. Lucie Commissioners approving the final site plan for the P1 Auto Club racetrack in western St. Lucie. It’s on Okeechobee Road near Sneed Road. Owner Ari Strauss says they want to have things going in the next couple of months but don’t just want pavement at this facility some 70 acres near Sneed Road. In some of our landscape renderings we show areas where a pedestrian or bike could actually leave the travel lane and then go through unpaved sections. It’s nice to not pave everything and we’re doing our best despite having a racetrack and a ribbon of asphalt to actually pave less. They hope to get one track up in operation in October, the opening of the larger track in late 2027. The Rivers Coalition looked back at the summer of 2015 and all the damage done by Lake Okeechobee releases to the east coast. Todd Thurlow was asked the question, is the area any better off today? He says it’s an age-old question when it comes to water in this area. Have we really made progress or is it just the weather? $129,000 was lost as a skid steer burned up in a fire at 4055 NE 300 and Fort St in Fort Drum. There were no injuries reported. I’m Charles Murphy, WOKC News.
Recorded from the WOKC daily newscast (Glades Media).