Osceola County Emergency Management Bill Litton is tasked with leading the team that responds to emergencies locally, like hurricanes.
The team prepped to deal with the blow from three hurricanes that hit Florida last year. Debby and Helene devastated the Florida Panhandle, but locally, historical Hurricane Milton, which crossed Osceola County as a Category 1 storm after devastating the west Florida coast with surge and wind.
“We were fortunate that we had a low impact from Milton other than (tracking a series of tornadoes),” Litton told the Osceola County Commission on June 2.
Much of Litton’s team’s work of putting in framework for preparing for and dealing with recovery of an event like a storm goes on in the background, working with state and local officials to put plans in place that then go out to the public. While much talk has been about limited FEMA local impact, with the Trump administration’s rollback of federal funding, there will be new modes of communication available for the 2025 storm season.
Litton told commissioners a new management tool called Crisis Track, will feature a dedicated link that the public can report and send photos of damages after a disaster.
“One of my speaking points is having that communication multiple ways,” he said, noting the Alert Osceola system (text ALERTOSCEOLA to 888777 to get county-based messages to your phone in the event of an incident) has been re-branded.
Another tool residents will have is the Beacon app, a joint effort of the state, the University of Florida and Florida Public Radio Network. It collates information released by the National Weather Service in Melbourne, and allows the state to add messaging to it.
“It allows another layer of defense,” Litton said, noting that if used fully it can turn a phone into a weather radio.
The National Hurricane Center will now be issuing more warnings (a sign impacts WILL come) than watches (a sign they MAY come) 72 hours, rather than 48 hours ahead of time. Litton said that will offer groups like the School District, which makes facilities available as shelters, better opportunity to prepare.
The Osceola emergency management team put its tools into training on May 22, when it held its annual hurricane exercise. The team responded operationally to “Hurricane Kenny,” a Category 3 storm entering Osceola from the due east after an Indian River landfall.
Litton said another “above average” season is expected, with Colorado State forecasters anticipating 17 storms, nine hurricanes and four Category 3+ major storms.
“Our residents do a good job when a storm comes,” he said. “We just stress being prepared now, it makes it easier than being part of the panic at the stores when a storm is bearing down. We advise not getting caught up in any storm numbers; it only takes one direct hit for it to be a bad storm season.”
