Post to hold community forum with hurricane and emergency experts ahead of storm season

The 2024 hurricane season is forecast to be one of the most active on record with many predictions calling for more than 20 named storms.

In preparation, The Palm Beach Post will convene a panel of emergency managers and hurricane experts to discuss their concerns about the season, what residents should do ahead of a storm, when to evacuate, and what to expect after the storm.

The forum, which will be shown live on PalmBeachPost.com and 16 other USAT Network-Florida newspaper sites, is scheduled for Wednesday, June 5, from 6:15-8:30 p.m. at Palm Beach State College's Lake Worth Beach campus.

The event is open to the public, but attendance is limited. To register, use the QR code.

Experts will discuss hurricane forecast and what you can do to prepare

Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, will be on the panel, as will nationally-honored FOX Weather hurricane expert Bryan Norcross, who is celebrated for saving lives in South Florida with his forecast of 1992’s Hurricane Andrew. They will be joined on the panel by Palm Beach County Emergency Management Director Mary Blakeney, Lake Worth Drainage District Executive Director Tommy Strowd and Jamie Molnar, executive director of emergency preparedness at Florida Power & Light.

Post reporter Kimberly Miller, who has two decades of experience covering hurricanes in Florida, along the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean, will moderate the discussion, which will include questions from the audience.

Again, this event is open to the public. Even if you are a long-time Florida resident, please join us to brush up on your preparation knowledge, find out what your evacuation zone is, and learn about the new hurricane forecast cone that will debut this season.

Panel participants:

Kevin Guthrie is executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. He joined the division in 2018 after more than two decades of serving as an officer and emergency preparedness coordinator with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. He has helped coordinate state responses through several major hurricane landfalls in Florida including 2022's Category 4 Hurricane Ian and 2023's Category 3 Hurricane Idalia.

Bryan Norcross is FOX Weather's hurricane specialist with more than five decades of experience as a meteorologist. He has previously worked for CNN, The Weather Channel and Miami-area television stations. In South Florida, Norcross is heralded for being the first to sound the alarm on the severity of Hurricane Andrew, which grew into a devastating Category 5 storm. He spent 23 consecutive hours on the air reporting as Andrew made landfall and counseling terrified residents. Norcross is the author of "My Hurricane Andrew Story" and "Hurricane Almanac: The Essential Guide to Storms Past, Present & Future."

Mary Blakeney has been the director of the Palm Beach County Public Safety Department's Division of Emergency Management since 2001. Before being appointed director, she served as the senior manager of the division where she has been involved in 11 emergency operation center activations and multiple other local incidents. Before joining the department in 2008 she was the emergency service director for the American Red Cross Greater Palm Beach Area Chapter.

Tommy Strowd is executive director and engineer for the Lake Worth Drainage District, which maintains the water supply for more than 800,000 Palm Beach County residents and prevents flooding through the control of 500 miles of canals and 20 major water control structures. He has more than 45 years of experience in environmental and water resource engineering. Before joining the drainage district in 2019, he was assistant executive of operations, maintenance and construction for the South Florida Water Management District.

Jamie Molnar is executive director of emergency preparedness for Florida Power & Light. She oversees plans and processes related to emergency response, event mitigation and recovery. These processes apply to hurricane and other severe storm conditions, grid capacity shortfall and emergency events, and cyber and physical threats to the FPL and NextEra systems.

Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida's environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism; subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Post to host public forum on hurricane awareness and preparation