Hear straight from experts on what to expect, and how to best prepare for hurricane season

Antonio Fins, Palm Beach Post
Updated ·3 min read

It's hurricane season and USA TODAY Network-Florida is inviting the public to watch a panel discussion Wednesday evening with storm experts, including a TV meteorologist who became famous for talking South Floridians through 1992 Hurricane Andrew from a darkened broadcast studio, emergency managers, and a Florida Power & Light official.

The discussion will be shown live on 19 USA TODAY Network-Florida news organization websites. It is a prelude to preparations for the 2024 hurricane season, which is forecast to be one of the most active on record with many predictions calling for more than 20 named storms.

Feel free to watch the forum and email questions to BreakingNews@pbpost.com. We'll try to answer your questions live during the broadcast.

Where to stream the Florida hurricane season discussion

The forum will be livestreamed from 6:15 to 8:30 p.m. on these USA TODAY Network-Florida sites:

palmbeachpost.com (The Palm Beach Post)

palmbeachdailynews.com (Palm Beach Daily News)

pnj.com (Pensacola News Journal)

nwfdailynews.com (Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach)

newsherald.com (Panama City News Herald)

tallahassee.com (Tallahassee Democrat)

gainesville.com (The Gainesville Sun)

ocala.com (Ocala StarBanner)

dailycommercial.com (Daily Commercial, Leesburg)

theledger.com (The Ledger, Lakeland)

newschief.com (News Chief, Winter Haven)

heraldtribune.com (Herald Tribune, Sarasota)

news-press.com (News Press, Fort Myers)

naplesnews.com (Naples Daily News)

jacksonville.com (The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville)

staugustine.com (The St. Augustine Record)

news-journalonline.com (The Daytona Beach News-Journal)

floridatoday.com (Florida Today, Melbourne)

tcpalm.com (Treasure Coast Newspapers)

The experts will offer guidance on evacuations, power restoration expectations, changes to the highly-watched "cone of probability" as well as forecasts for flooding.

Hurricane season: NOAA makes highest storm forecast on record. What are chances SoFla impacted?

A corvette is covered in sand from Hurricane Jeanne's storm surge outside the Ocean Rise condos on Hutchinson Island, Florida on September 26, 2004.
A corvette is covered in sand from Hurricane Jeanne's storm surge outside the Ocean Rise condos on Hutchinson Island, Florida on September 26, 2004.

Florida Emergency Management's Kevin Gutherie, FPL among guests

Palm Beach 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.

The panel participants are:

Kevin Guthrie, Executive Director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management
Kevin Guthrie, Executive Director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management

  • Kevin Guthrie: Executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. 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, FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist
Bryan Norcross, FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist

  • Bryan Norcross: 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, and then broadcasting through the storm.

Mary Blakeney, Director of the Palm Beach County Division of Emergency Management
Mary Blakeney, Director of the Palm Beach County Division of Emergency Management

  • Mary Blakeney: The director of the Palm Beach County Public Safety Department's Division of Emergency Management since 2021. 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.

Lake Worth Drainage District Executive Director Tommy Strowd
Lake Worth Drainage District Executive Director Tommy Strowd

  • Tommy Strowd: Executive director and engineer for the Lake Worth Drainage District. The district 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.

Jamie Molnar, executive director, emergency preparedness, Florida Power & Light
Jamie Molnar, executive director, emergency preparedness, Florida Power & Light

  • Jamie Molnar: Executive director of emergency preparedness for Florida Power & Light. She oversees plans and processes related to emergency response, event mitigation and recovery.

What to know about the 2024 hurricane season

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.

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Hurricane season 2024: Watch live as Florida experts answer questions