WAFC Local News – February 03, 2026, 8:32 AM
Transcript
I’m Charles Murphy reporting. Maybe the extreme cold is over with. We’ve had some cold nights in recent nights with lows under 30 degrees in parts of our listening area. Last night, the lows reported was Cluiston 35, LaBelle 30, fell to 31, Moorhaven 31 and Belle Glade 35. There has been some some catastrophic vegetable damage and fruit damage in counties north of here. Nurseries, citrus growers and vegetable growers still assessing some of the damage. David Torbett of Torbett Farms and Homestead said they’ll find out how much the damage is after a few days. We had some heavy damage on some squash. We had some lighter damage on beans. It all kind of just depended where you’re at. The Army Corps of Engineers is predicting Lake Okeechobee will get as low as nine and a half feet this year. Colonel Brandon Bowman says they aren’t overreacting, and it’s too soon in the dry season to accurately predict how low the lake will go. So that number I gave you around nine and a half feet, that is considering a very dry, dry season. It’s something we’re watching very closely. And again, that’s worst case scenario. No water conservation measures. So it will likely be above that. Again, Mother Nature has a huge vote in this. The lake fell just short of the goal to fill up to 14 feet during the wet season. There were no tropical events, as we know, to impact the lake this year. Colonel Bowman says the recovery mode decision was the right one. The lake responded how we thought it was going to through through our modeling efforts. And I asked the team yesterday, so had we not done lake recovery? Where would the lake be at today? What would have been the impacts? And the answer is it would have been about a foot difference. Clays County Representative Tim Stanley suggests the lake could go as low as eight feet. He says having the lake drier is better for the vegetation, but also causes problems. I’d like to see the lake go down. It’s going to help the lake. But if it goes down too far, all that we’ve gained is all going to die when it dries up and we’re going to start all over again. A 25 year old Henry County man is facing charges after some narcotics were found inside the Henry County Jail. Jacoby Jones was in a confinement cell during a routine cell search when a corrections guard found a piece of paper that tested positive for methamphetamine. Jones claimed it was his legal mail and they legally could not touch it. He was charged with drug possession and smuggling contraband into a county detention facility. Bank Shaw of Tennessee won the Toyota Series on Lake Oogachobee. He had a three day total of 49 pounds and five ounces. The prize money this year, seventy nine thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. I didn’t know if we were going to fish today or not with the weather coming in. So I burn up my fish and just barely did squeak by today. Usually whenever I win a tournament, it’s by a decent margin. But man, that close. I mean, that’ll get your nerves going. The margin of victory was just three ounces. I’m Charles Murphy, WAFC News.
Recorded from the WAFC daily newscast (Glades Media).