Lakeland Hurricane Expo helps residents prepare before storm season begins

LAKELAND, Fla. - Ready or not, hurricane season is nearly here. 

"Preparation is planning, so you have to do the work ahead of time so you're prepared for the during," said David Cox, Emergency Manager for the City of Lakeland.

Hurricane Preparedness

What they're saying:

The 2026 hurricane season starts Monday, June 1st, and the City of Lakeland wants to make sure the public is prepared by hosting its hurricane expo.

"Just coming here today is the first step in that because you're going to be introduced to a lot of topics and you're going to be introduced a lot expertise and products and vendors will be here talking about what they can do to help and you know we don't want anyone to fall through the seams," Cox said.

"We wanted to make it inclusive to everybody. We've got vendors that will come out and help with storm prep for children, storm prep for our senior community, our just general population. We want to make sure that everybody that's out there has an opportunity to come in, learn something, and get prepared ahead of storm season," said Adam Lebovitz, Community Resilience Manger for United Way of Central Florida.

Lebovitz reminded residents of the 211 phone network, where you can find where resources are being held, such as food distribution and shelters.

"We found that in that long-term recovery, that first step, people just don't know where to go to turn first. So if we can get that information out before the storm, it makes that long-term recovery process a whole lot easier and happen a whole lot faster," Lebovitz said.

Their message is to also think of others in the event of a major storm. 

Whether this is your first Florida hurricane season, or your 20th, the number one point the event wants to get across is to be ready.

"We already have our crew that's out there doing calibration, and we are testing all of our equipment, and we're ready to go," said Larissa Sperk, ENS for NOAA.