Biggest Apopka stories of 2016: Hurricane Matthew pays a visit

Editor’s Note: This is the 13th in a series of articles published by The Apopka Voice in 2016 that were the most noteworthy events of the year. The Apopka Voice will publish them starting Monday, December 26th and running until Sunday, January 1st. On January, 2nd we will publish a poll and let the readers decide on which story is the most impactful of the year.

City of Apopka, first responders and residents perform well

First Published: October 7th, 2016

Hurricane Matthew is on the slow move north in the Atlantic Ocean on its way to Northern Florida and Georgia. His tour of Central Florida was brief, but significant.

Over 65,000 residents in Orange County were without power. 20 traffic lights went out. 1,250 people evacuated to Orange County shelters. Disney World, the Orlando International Airport along with most every business in the county closed.

And like most of Central Florida, Apopka is bruised, battered but not beaten.

We bought all of the gas, bread, water and plywood in town. The local hotels were full. We dealt with 7-inches of rain, 60-mph wind gusts, downed trees and a 10pm Thursday to 2pm Friday curfew.

But we survived.

Captain Randall Fernandez of the Apopka Police Department gave the overall assessment of Apopka's battle with Matthew.

"Over all, there was very little damage in the city, and very few law enforcement issues. No officers were hurt during the event. We still have a lot of power outages and closed businesses, but that is quickly being resolved."

Earlier in the day, Mayor Joe Kilsheimer issued this statement on Facebook that still applies several hours later:

"The worst of Hurricane Matthew seems to have passed. HOWEVER: It will be a minimum of a day or two before life fully returns to normal. There are multiple power outages across Apopka, affecting an estimated 7,000 Apopka-area residents. We have multiple intersections where the traffic signals have no power. Windy conditions need to subside before the power company can get out and restore power. Several downed trees need to have live power lines neutralized before the trees can be removed. I know everyone is anxious to get back to their normal lives. Please give public safety and power company personnel the time and space they need to safely restore public services."

Apopka Police Chief Michael McKinley also responded to the storm and to the time and effort his officers and staff put in during the storm.

"The City of Apooka escaped this enormous storm relatively unscathed. The dedicated men and women of the Apopka Police Department spent the last 24-plus hours working hard to ensure our community was safe. I am proud of their dedication and hard work. Just as they do every day, they left their families to protect us under some very difficult conditions and they did a great job."

And according to McKinley, their extended staff and hours continues.

"We went to 12 hour shifts for patrol and called squads in on their day off to ensure we had sufficient coverage. The communications Center had everyone on duty to ensure we could cover any significant increase in calls for service. We also dispatch for Maitland and Eatonville. We continue to have additional staff on duty until tomorrow morning when I believe things should begin to get back to normal."

As the saying goes, Apopka prepared for the worst, and hoped and prayed for the best. What we experienced was probably closer to the latter, but at a minimum it was a good test for future weather events. The city's emergency operation center performed well. Police, Fire and Rescue were prepared to respond, and did. The residents as a whole took Hurricane Matthew seriously and prepared accordingly. This was a sort of like military maneuvers with live ammunition.

On every level Apopka passed this test, and that's a good thing because its October 7th, and hurricane season doesn't end until November 30th.