We will have plenty of sunshine and chilly weather on Thursday.

High temperatures will be in the upper 50s and a frost advisory is in effect for Northern Litchfield County for early Friday morning.

We will have lots of sunshine on Friday and Saturday and milder temperatures.

Then there are chances for rain showers on Sunday and Monday.

We’re hearing from people with ties to our state who are hunkering down in their homes in Florida.

They are dealing with everything from powerful winds to tornadoes.

“This is the worst hurricane I’ve ever been through,” Carissa Carter, of Palmetto, FL, said.

Carter is originally from East Hartford and is now living near Sarasota.

“We lost power 20 minutes ago. It sounds like a train wreck. It’s really scary outside. I chose to stay here in my home in Florida because we live in a concrete block home,” Carter said.

On the east coast, a scary scene unfolded near Palm Beach and the home of Jordan Oaks who is originally from Rocky Hill.

“There’s people going crazy down here. My neighbors are all looking outside, just watching this tornado rip through these yards. And you can see the actual debris of what looks like roofing, trees flying in the air and just going north,” Jordan Oaks, of Westlake, FL, said.

Near Orlando rain pounded the home of Jason Berry, who is originally from Franklin. He put out sandbags and did other preparations.

“We have a lot of patio furniture on our full deck, so we put that away. Any loose objects in the yard that can go flying, those are all packed away in the garage. Our neighbors boarded up their windows,” Berry said.

People hunkered down all around the Sunshine State and are now hoping for the best amid the fury of Milton.

“I just hope everybody’s staying safe, and prayers goes out to everybody,” Oaks said.

Oaks, who is a country musician, just released his debut album and hopes to be able to fly back to Connecticut on Friday.

He’s set to play at the Southington Apple Harvest Festival on Saturday.

Erica Soares, 24, of Waterbury, shared her story on Wednesday in front of dozens of local and state leaders to help create change. 

“At a young age, I faced challenges most people don’t experience in a lifetime; homelessness, sexual assault, the incarceration of a parent, losing a parent,” Soares said. 

Soares did not let her circumstances define her. Currently, she is getting her master’s degree and is heavily involved with the Waterbury Police Activity League. In the spring, she met with students and local leaders to help address the crisis of disconnected youth. 

“They were just excited that the mayors wanted to sit down and listen to them, they weren’t questioning them or anything like that,” Soares added. 

Similar conversations have been ongoing in communities across our state during the last eight months to create a new strategy to help Connecticut’s youngest population. 

“How we can reconnect disconnected youth is simply just talking, just filling a part,” said David Mezard, of Stamford. 

Mezard overcame his own challenges of being incarcerated. He now advocates for more programs to be in place to help the youth. 

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, or CCM, released a new report on Wednesday, outlining a 10-year plan to help re-engage youth who are on a path to drop out of school or out of the workforce. 

“Really it is a report to residents, and to help empower residents to really think about how we can get our youth back on track,” Stonington First Selectwoman Danielle Chesebrough said. 

According to the 119K commission, organized by CCM, 119,000 young people between the ages of 14 and 26 are at-risk or have already detached from their lives. CCM’s proposed strategy focuses on cutting the crisis in half, getting 60,000 people back on the right path over the course of a decade. 

The plan proposes changes to policies in education and calls for more federal funding and incremental state investments of $500 million in public schools. 

“There is a really strong return on investment, we are paying for this over the long term, never mind the human value of all of this,” Chesebrough added. 

Local leaders plan to utilize the report in the upcoming legislative session to advocate for policy changes and more funding.