MIAMI — Every hurricane season in Florida brings its own set of challenges. This one — kicking off in just a few days — happens to come with droves of visitors from around the world descending on South Florida over the course of several weeks.
The timing of FIFA World Cup games at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens will collide with the Atlantic hurricane season. It also falls during a sweltering time of year that can come with massive amounts of flooding, regardless of whether tropical storms break out. All of that could create a chaotic situation of one of the world’s largest sporting events meeting Florida’s notorious tropical deluges.
“We are very concerned,” Miami-Dade Department of Emergency Management Director Pete Gomez told reporters Tuesday, saying the emergency preparedness team went to “about 32 meetings a week” to prepare for the games. “That is a new community that we are worried about making sure that you folks get the message out … because they’re coming in from all over the world, and they don’t know what a hurricane is.”…