Wedding venue in Blue Ridge, GA for couples in Lakeland, FL

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Tractor trailers pulled up to Interlachen Park on Tuesday evening carrying pumps and pipes that will be used to drain floodwaters from Lake Bonny, relieving dozens of residents who have been flooded out of their homes following historic rainfall culminating with Hurricane Milton.

Florida Rep. Jennifer Canady, R-Lakeland, applauded and cheered and City Commissioner Mike Musick was on hand to welcome the workers.

“In recent days, it became clear that both the city and the county had done everything in their power to help residents experiencing significant flooding, especially those in hard-hit Lake Bonny,” said Canady, who has spent time with homeowners and also the state emergency operations director in Tallahassee as multiple officials coordinated between city, county, state and federal agencies.

The help came a day after 18 people begged the Lakeland City Commission to do something and nearly two weeks after Hurricane Milton’s rains rose Lake Bonny to historic levels.

Bonny Shores and Lakeland Livin’ mobile home parks, Lake Bonny Drive East, Sunset Avenue, and Bonny Apartments were inundated with water by Oct. 10 following Milton’s Category 2 winds and rains.

The plan: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will use three industrial water pumps and 7,000 feet of piping to remove water from Lake Bonny and transfer it to Lake Parker. Officials with the Southwest Florida Water Management District – known as Swiftmud – and Polk County have agreed to allow Lake Bonny outflow to be discharged into the Peace River via Lake Parker and Lake Hancock.

Tuesday night’s delivery came from Clewiston and was stored in a city facility between Lake Bonny and Lake Parker overnight. The city and Canady were expecting two pumps, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers delivered three. They also brought 1,000 feet of pipe, with 6,000 feet more coming from Louisiana early Wednesday, Canady said.

City and Swiftmud staff will work around the clock to install the system and get it working, according to City Communications Director Kevin Cook. City staff will tend the system 24/7 to ensure it is operating and not causing unintended flooding in the vicinity of the operations, Cook said.

Pipe route: The above-ground pipes are being routed northwest from Lake Bonny and under the train trestle on North Gary Road near Magnolia Street to a stormwater outflow just north the trestle. The route avoids placing the pipes above the CSX tracks or digging under the tracks.

The stormwater system discharges to Lake Parker, then Saddle Creek, which flows to Lake Hancock before being discharged into the Peace River. Swiftmud oversees and manages water bodies that flow to the Peace River.

Road closures: The layout of the piping will result in closure of a large portion of Main Street, which will be open only to residents between Lake Parker Avenue and Canal Avenue.

Closed roads will include:

City officials encourage drivers to avoid the area and follow the detours. The recreational path from Lake Bonny Drive to the boat ramp will be closed as well.

It is too early to know how long the detours will last, according to the city press release, which said, “The system will operate for an undetermined timeframe … until Lake Bonny reaches an acceptable level.”

‘Thinking out of the box’: “The city of Lakeland team has continued to agonize alongside our flooded Lake Bonny residents,” City Manager Shawn Sherrouse said in a press release. “We have tirelessly sought every opportunity to reduce flooding levels without negatively impacting other residents or major commerce networks.”

Sherrouse added that by taking the current pump location out of the equation, “we were able to think outside the box and devise a unique plan to redirect floodwaters into Lake Parker.”

Musick – who along with Commissioner Guy LaLonde Jr. has met with residents at the lake – said he is thankful for Sherrouse, Canady, staff engineers, emergency operators and the truck drivers who arrived Tuesday and were on their way.

“We all cling to the hope and pray that this will bring our Lake Bonnie residents some much-needed relief,” Musick said.

Historic rainfall: The National Weather Service reported that Hurricane Milton’s rainfall was a “1-in-1,000-year event, resulting in unprecedented flooding in the Tampa Bay and Central Florida area.”

Cook said the Lakeland area experienced more than 12 inches of rain in 24 hours, taxing the city’s stormwater system. Prior to Milton, Lakeland experienced a heavy thunderstorm in early August, then Hurricane Helene and finally Milton. The storms poured rainwater into all area lakes and the water kept coming as it washed downstream from areas north of Polk County.

Because all area lakes, rivers and tributaries were flooded and Central Florida is mostly flat, it was very difficult to alleviate flood conditions and lower lake levels.

Since June, the Lake Hollingsworth rain gauge has shown 62.65 inches of rain. The National Weather Service says the normal average is 30.47 inches.

Resident reactions: “They just knocked on my door!! Pumps are coming!” Katelyn Gonzalez wrote on the Lake Bonny Neighborhood Facebook page at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. She posted a picture of a letter given to area residents about road closures in the area.

“This is a God send,” Paul Mazurowski wrote on Facebook. “Now if only we could see a caravan of FEMA trailers rolling in for us that have no place to live. I’ve always been sympathetic with homeless folks but living as such really gives the word homeless a new meaning.”

Goodbye, 9-5. If you (or someone you know) recently retired, you might be looking for activities catering to older adults. Clock into our retirement guide, and find opportunities in Lakeland that work for you.

If you’re not planning on slowing down in your retirement, keep moving with fitness classes perfect for older Lakelanders.

There’s no wrong way to get fit. Your first step could be as easy as finding walking trails at a local park or exploring one of Lakeland’s easier hikes.

If you’re looking to spend time with the grandchildren, explore these 24 kid-friendly activities in Lakeland and pick one that’s your speed.

Give back to the community by volunteering at a local organization. Whether you’re interested in supporting the arts or want to put in work outdoors, check out our full list of opportunities.

Whether you choose to peruse one of the city’s museums, take in a performance at Lakeland Community Theatre, or try out one of the library’s crafting classes, there are numerous ways to get immersed in Lakeland’s arts and culture scene.

It’s never too late to learn new skills. Take classes in writing, computer education, Broadway history, and other topics at The Rath Senior ConNEXTions Center, or get hands-on knowledge by adventuring across the state with the Road Scholar Program.

If you have a fondness for things of the past, consider brushing up on your local history with this collection of articles, stopping by a meeting of the Lakeland Stamp Club, or taking a monthly architectural tour of the Polk County History Center.

Making friends has no age limit. Connect with others while trying something new at Senior Wellness Services, Beautiful Minds Social Center, or one of Lakeland’s five community centers.

SARASOTA, Fla. − Hurricane Milton weakened slightly Tuesday but remained an extremely powerful storm that could double in size before slamming into west-central Florida late Wednesday.

"Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida," John Cangialosi, a specialist with the National Hurricane Center, warned in an update Tuesday. Damaging winds, life-threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall will extend well outside the forecast cone, he said.

Milton had undergone stunningly rapid intensification Monday, its sustained winds reaching 180 mph. Early Tuesday those winds were at 145, still a fierce Category 4 storm. Fluctuations in the storm's strength were expected as it closes in on the coast, Cangialosi said.

Storm surge of up to 15 feet was forecast for Sarasota, Tampa and other west-central areas. Evacuations were underway, and state officials suspended tolls and opened road shoulders to traffic. Shelters were open in all 67 Florida counties. Authorities urged residents of evacuation zones not to attempt to ride out the storm.

“I can say without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas you’re gonna die,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor told CNN.

Milton's path updates:Hurricane Milton tracker

Developments

∎ Milton was centered about 545 miles southwest of Tampa early Tuesday, rolling east-northeast at 12 mph.

∎ The storm was expected to pound the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday. The area is home to the picturesque colonial-era city of Merida, population 1.2 million, several Maya ruins popular with tourists, and the port of Progreso.

Closer look at Milton's path:How the storm is unfolding

Longtime Florida resident 'not panicking'

Streams of customers and hurricane preppers filled big-box retailers in Manatee County ahead of Hurricane Milton. East Bradenton resident Karen Tonkin Wakefield made stops Monday at the Lowe's Home Improvement Store and an Aldi Grocery store in Parrish for her final preparations.

"I've lived here since 1982. I have two homes in Parrish and I'm just getting a few last-minute things," Wakefield said. "I'm feeling OK, not panicking because we had a lot left from the last one (Hurricane Helene) just a couple of weeks ago." Read more on Hurricane Milton prep.

Read the full story:Hurricane Milton prep continues in Florida

Could Milton become a Category 6 hurricane?

Milton, the rapidly developing hurricane that shows no signs of stopping, won’t technically become a Category 6 because the category doesn't currently exist. But the storm could reach the level of a hypothetical Category 6 − and further stir debate about whether the National Hurricane Center’s long-used scale for classifying hurricane wind speeds from Category 1 to 5 might need an overhaul.

If Milton had reached wind speeds of 192 mph, it would have surpass a threshold that just five hurricanes and typhoons have reached since 1980, according to Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Jim Kossin, a retired federal scientist and science advisor at the nonprofit First Street Foundation.

The pair authored a study looking at whether the extreme storms could become the basis of a Category 6 hurricane denomination. All five of the storms occurred over the previous decade. Kossin and Wehner said they weren’t proposing adding a Category 6 to the wind scale but were trying to “inform broader discussions” about communicating the growing risks in a warming world.

Read the full story:Could Milton become a Category 6?

— Dinah Voyles Pulver and Michael Loria, USA TODAY

Milton and its unusual trek

Fed by warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, the Hurricane Center said, as the storm surged from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours. Its path from west to east was also unusual, as Gulf hurricanes typically form in the Caribbean Sea and make landfall after traveling west and turning north.

"It is exceedingly rare for a hurricane to form in the western Gulf, track eastward, and make landfall on the western coast of Florida," said Jonathan Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Cornell University. "This has big implications since the track of the storm plays a role in determining where the storm surge will be the largest."

Contributing: Reuters

7-minute read

A former CEO of the Shula Restaurant Group plans to convert the historic Florida National Bank building in downtown Lakeland into Prima 135, an upscale steakhouse. To help make the plan a reality, the building’s owner is seeking $195,000 in incentives from the Lakeland Community Redevelopment Agency.

The restaurant: Prima 135 is envisioned as an elegant establishment that “will fill a niche in the market for a higher-end steakhouse with an Italian flair,” according to Bill Freeman, the entrepreneur behind the project. He says he hopes Prima 135 can open by the end of next year.

The restaurateur: Freeman, a South Carolina resident, has been in the restaurant business for 45 years. In the last 15 years, he has been CEO of three restaurant organizations specializing in top-end eateries: Shula’s Restaurant Group in South Florida, Mina Group in San Franciso, and McCormick & Schmicks in Portland, Oregon. His current project is the not-yet-open Il Mercato & Crave Kitchen in Salem, S.C.

The building: The Florida National Bank Building was built in 1946 in an Art Deco style at 113 S. Tennessee Ave. Its massive lobby features extensive marble flooring and walls and a high wood coffered ceiling, all of which Freeman plans to preserve. The 15,860-square-foot, two-story building housed banks continuously until last February, when Wells Fargo ended its lease. The building has been owned by Baron Management LLC since 2014.

Cory Petcoff, president of Baron Management, applied for two incentive grants from the Lakeland Community Redevelopment Agency, which was set up to revitalize downtown, Midtown and Dixieland. The grants, if approved, would partially reimburse the developers after construction is complete. The two grants are:

The project addresses the CRA’s two main goals for downtown, CRA Director Valerie Vaught said: Activate unused second floors and convert unused first floors to retail and restaurant uses.

The CRA staff would have the authority to grant up to $50,000 combined for the project, Vaught said. But because of “the extensive renovation and change of use of this strategic location,” Vaught and her staff instead are asking the CRA Advisory Board to approve incentives totaling $195,000.

The board will consider the request when it meets Thursday at 3 p.m. at City Hall. (View the grant request here or at the end of this article.)

The incentive amount not to exceed $195,000 is based on 10% of estimated costs, which are $1,275,000 for interior improvements and $675,000 for utility improvements.

Petcoff, a former chair of the CRA Advisory Board, estimated total construction costs — not including equipping the restaurant — at $3 million. Around $800,000 of that would come from expected grants and the restaurant developers, he said, and the rest would be funded by Baron Management, Petcoff said.

Restaurateur Freeman said he has secured commitments for private funding, but declined to name the investors.

Freeman says this is the second time he has been involved in converting an older bank building into a steakhouse. The first one was in San Francisco when he headed the Mina Group. “It’s a big challenge to convert a bank, but the classic ones have a lot of charm and history,” he said.

He said he approached Petcoff after hearing about the vacant bank in downtown Lakeland from a friend and he subsequently visited several times: “Lakeland is a beautiful city with a great sense of history. There are some great restaurants already there. We can fill a niche in the market.”

That niche is a high-end steakhouse, the kind that some Polk County diners seek out in Tampa or Orlando, he said, and he hopes to keep them from having to drive that far.

A “concept overview” attached to the grant application describes some of the dishes that are anticipated: “a combination of authentic Italian dishes with a variety of homemade pasta made daily, Charcuterie selections, Lobster Scampi Toast, Black Truffle Cacio E Pepe, Chicken Parm, Veal Milanese, Potato & Robiola Gnocchi and a variety of Bone-In and Aged Prime Steak cuts.”

Chef Marcos Fernandez, who owns Nineteen61, located a block away on Main Street, said he always likes seeing new restaurants open in the downtown area: “A rising tide lifts all ships.”

Fernandez noted that he did not benefit from CRA funding. However, the owner of the previous restaurant in the building at 215 E. Main Street, Posto 9, received CRA approval for tax increment financing when he was about to spend several million dollars to purchase the building and convert it to a Brazilian restaurant. But Posto 9 failed before its owner was able to take advantage of the CRA assistance, Vaught said.

The restaurant will take up the entire first floor of the Tennessee Avenue building, with the kitchen located at the rear, visible through large glass windows. It will seat 131, including two 12-seat private rooms and U-shaped bar in the center with 24 chairs, according to a floor plan prepared by Straughn Trout Architects of Lakeland.

A bank vault in the northwest corner will be preserved and used as a wine cellar with three wine-tasting tables nearby. New lighting will soften the ambience, Petcoff said.

In order to avoid marring the look of the classic wooden-paneled ceiling with a sprinkler system, the developers were able to get approval for a system that recesses the metal pipe into the woodwork with heads that will spray water sideways and down, Petcoff said.

Planned changes to the exterior of the building are minimal. They include new fire escapes on the south side and rear of the building, a canopy over the front entrance, an awning over a side entrance and signage on the northeast corner.

Those changes have been conditionally approved by the Lakeland Historic Preservation Board with the architects requested to provide updated information on canopies and awnings.

3-minute read

Lakeland and Polk County escaped relatively unscathed when winds and rains from Hurricane Helene swirled through on Thursday night.

The worst local damage was to two houses that were hit by fallen trees, according to Paul Womble, Polk County’s emergency services director. One is on Deeson Road in north Lakeland, and the other is in Mulberry.

Cleanup: Many Lakeland residents woke up to yards full of fallen branches and tree debris. Similar debris littered many neighborhood roads.

City of Lakeland crews circulated in trucks to clear some of the larger piles of fallen tree limbs.

Landfall: The Category 4 storm slammed into the Big Bend area at the sleepy town of Dekle Beach, with winds up to 140 mph. Catastrophic and historic storm surges were seen from Apalchee Bay to Venice Beach.

All of Taylor County, population 22,000, was without power within an hour of the massive storm coming ashore.

Statewide more than 1.24 million lost power during the storm, but 1.16 million of them were restored by crews that were standing by, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference.

Local power outages: Lakeland Electric reported that 4,800 customers lost power at some point during the storm. At 1 p.m. today, Lakeland Electric’s outage map showed 30 outages affecting 443 customers remained. Lakeland Electric is on standby to send crews to North Florida.

During the storm, a tornado warning was issued at 6:48 p.m. when weather radar spotted a rotational motion near the Polk-Hillsborough line south of State Road 60. But officials said it quickly dissipated.

The top wind speed recorded in Polk County was 59 mph in Fort Meade, according to Jeff Foley, a spokesman for Polk County government.

Lending a hand: Forty-five employees of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and Polk Fire Rescue left Bartow at 6:45 a.m. in a convoy headed to Perry, the county seat in Taylor County, to provide assistance.

The convoy included mobile command centers, mobile kitchen, showers, bunks, generators, water tanks, fuel trucks, a swamp buggy, boats, ATV’s, patrol cars, and ambulances.

They will provide law enforcement and assist with rescues and recovery, working in 12-hour shifts.

Hurricane Hunters: The Lakeland-based Hurricane Hunters – part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – had a bit of scare as they flew through the storm Thursday afternoon. The crew of the NOAA WP-3D, nicknamed “Kermit,” was momentarily stuck circling within the eye of the storm. NOAA’s hurricane hunters routinely fly through storms and into the eye, dropping probes that transmit data to the team.

“During their second of four eyewall passes in Hurricane Helene, the crew orbited within the eye to release a second uncrewed aircraft system for research purposes,” a statement on Facebook read. “The crew was also evaluating if landing conditions would allow a return to home base instead of point of origin. Thank you for your concern. ’Kermit’ and crew are fine.”