LEON COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) - Earlier this year Leon County was named the first Hurricane Strong community in the country by the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes or FLASH.
But how has that designation helped so far this hurricane season?
The season officially ends November 30. Clearly, the biggest event so far has been Hurricane Michael, which hit the area October 10.
Before the season started, the county worked on different things to build what's called "disaster resilience."
That included a Ready Business Hurricane Preparedness workshop in April.
A big part of the designation has been communication, how the county gets across messages to the public.
The county was able to access experts, hearing from national leaders to come up with the best ways to prepare for a hurricane.
Emergency Management Director, Kevin Peters, explained being #HurricaneStrong has other layers too.
"It does recognize a community's efforts, in our case, Leon County, specifically, for our building standards, our floodplain management programs, county emergency management being part of the National Weather Service's StormReady program, as well as the commitment to continue improvement through our after-action review process," said Peters.
The county is working on a comprehensive report to analyze the response to Hurricane Michael, just like it's done for hurricanes Hermine and Irma.
Peters said that will likely come out at the start of next year.
