I have lived in Orlando for just over 20 years and with recent events it has rapidly become a very different town. I am the Manager at TacticalShit Orlando and I travel through Disney property on a daily basis, recently the landscape has become reminiscent of a scene from a shoot em up video game. The roads are empty, parking lots that were full to capacity with 100’s of cast member and guest vehicles are now empty.
The bustling Disney Springs that has been at capacity everyday since it opened sits empty with not a soul to be seen, Interstate 4 is earily quiet and easy to travel on (which take it from any local or tourist is never the case). The normal sounds of machineguns being fired at MachineGun America has been replaced with employees chit chatting about whatever has their attention at that moment, and the normal traffic sounds from Highway 192 has been replaced with silence. Orlando has certainly been reduced to as close to a ghost town as possible, when we have a Hurricane about to bare down on us there are more people walking and more traffic on the streets.
Even Local Law Enforcement can be found parked together back from the roadways seemingly trying to avoid human contact. With all of the above a mandatory Shelter in Place hasnt even started yet, the Orange & Osceola County Executive Order starts at 23:00 tonight Thursday March 26th 2020, after the order goes into effect anyone that is caught on the streets faces the possibility of a $600 fine and or upto 90 days in the county jail. Most of the populace has been out of work for at least the last 7 days and with another 7 to 14 days of no work I am sure we will see a an upsurge in violence and crime. Everyone I talk to is concerned as to whether they will have a job to go back to in the coming weeks.
Tensions and Paranoia are definitely elevated and as I type this in my store a customer was just walking around coughing and generally showing signs of being sick or a 2 pack a day smoker, I certainly hope it is the latter.