June Incidents 2016

It seems to be a recurring theme that as soon as a new month arrives, an immediate and prompt number of noteworthy incidents appear on the radar for the JFRD to mitigate. June had barely begun when the services of JFRD were needed for a mutual aid request from neighboring Clay County as a third alarm furniture store fire along Blanding Boulevard required a considerable number of resources, primarily in the form of 'human' resources. The fire, requiring the latter referenced services over the weekend of June 4 and 5, occurred during one of the hottest outdoor conditions experienced in our region so far in this year of 2016. Thankfully no injuries were reported from the incident.
As June also typically heralds the official start of the Hurricane Season, it came as no surprise that naturally a storm would appear within no time at all to remind everyone that the name of our state is 'Florida,' hurricane headquarters of North America. Although Tropical Storm 'Colin,' officially arriving in our area during the late afternoon/early evening hours of Monday, 6 June, did not pack quite the punch some may have expected, the system did manage to create a rain and wind event requiring a monitoring level of activation from the Emergency Operations Center. The storm would result in a few downed trees, a putative tornado report and brief power outages impacting a little more than 1,000 inhabitants of our city while ultimately delivering a very good test for all city agencies in ensuring that protocols and plans are both in place and effective.