West Palm Beach conducts full-scale hurricane drill at Fire Station 5

City leaders and staff ran a simulated hurricane response exercise at the West Palm Beach Emergency Operations Center in Fire Station 5, a reporter said. The drill brought together firefighters, police, public works, public utilities and staff from other departments to practice coordinated preparation, response and recovery.

The exercise was intended to ensure participants know roles and procedures during a storm, a staff member said: "What we're doing is we're doing preparation, and then we're gonna do response, and then we're gonna do recovery." The drill included monitoring weather conditions and reports of damage, injuries and people stranded by floodwaters, the reporter said.

A staff member described simulated field conditions: "I was going a 140 miles an hour. There's a lot of debris on the ground. There's a lot of roads impassable." The reporter said many people assigned to the operations center could spend "several days and nights" there during a real hurricane, noting the facility has a few cubicles with beds, exercise equipment, bathrooms and showers.

Participants practiced information flow and rapid decision-making in a condensed exercise format. The transcript includes a directional reference to Bayonne Avenue as part of the drill scenario. The reporter summarized that the exercise was designed to rehearse the full cycle of hurricane management from initial preparation through recovery.

Organizers and participants framed the drill as precautionary. A staff member said, "This is my world. This is what I do every single day. You guys don't do this but if we get a storm." The reporter closed the segment identifying the source of the account: "This is Cheryl Conn reporting for WPB TV."