In an email from Okaloosa County Commissioner Nathan Boyles Wednesday afternoon, he details that Okaloosa County has begun to prepare for a likely emergency meeting of the County Commission tomorrow, March 19th.

According to the email, the primary purpose of the meeting will be to consider some type of closure of Okaloosa County beaches as a means to reduce travel into the County.

The details of what “some type of closure” specifically mean were not yet laid out in the email.

“County staff and our legal team are working through a number of options to achieve the desired result,” said Boyles. “I expect there will be healthy debate amongst the commission as to the best way to proceed. While this is an exceptionally unfortunate situation for all of us who are supported by the tourism industry, dealing aggressively with the issue now provides us the hope that we can move toward some level of normalcy during our peak summer season. The decision to coordinate an emergency meeting is being driven in part by pending information about additional cases in Northwest Florida related to travel into this area.”

CONFIRMED: 2:35pm

The Okaloosa County board of County Commissioners will have a special meeting March 19^th, 2020 regarding additional protectives measure in Okaloosa county related to the COVID-19 Virus

The public is encouraged to watch the meeting via the county’s website, in order to avoid large crowds. 

This story is developing and we will update once the meeting date and time is confirmed.