At about 8:25 Friday morning, half an hour after our last issue went out, Fernandina Beach Middle School's resource officer was called to a suspicious person and vehicle in the school lot. Police Chief Jeffrey Tambasco said the officer found Ralph Suarez, 68, sitting on the ground beside a blanket laid out with several knives and a compound bow with arrows. There was a struggle, and during it, police say, Suarez threatened to blow up the school. He was arrested in the parking lot before he reached a building; the school went into a brief lockdown, and the district told families that normal operations resumed once police confirmed there was no further threat. Suarez is charged with exhibiting a weapon on school property, armed trespass on school property, making a false bomb threat and resisting arrest. Tambasco said police found no connection between him and the school, and that he had been held for mental health observation in the county before; court records from a July trespassing arrest carry a suggestion of mental incompetence. A Fernandina Beach woman told News4Jax he had come into her workplace earlier that morning and threatened her, and that the officer who responded left for another call. Police say they do not yet know what he intended, and the department's investigators have the case.

The National Weather Service has a flood watch over all of Nassau County through 8 tonight as the front that soaked the weekend slides through, with another inch or two of rain expected and the heaviest bands south of Interstate 10. Behind it, high pressure builds to the north and turns the wind onshore, which is the nor'easter Friday's issue flagged. Tuesday brings northeast winds of 15 to 20 with gusts to 35 on the coast, possibly 45 by afternoon, rounds of heavy rain, and a rip current statement that runs through Wednesday night, with the surf risk high through at least Thursday; a wind advisory is possible. Wednesday is windier still and cooler, around 77. The part that reaches people who never go near the beach is the water: the wind and the approaching new moon push each high tide to at least minor flood stage along the coast, the Intracoastal and the river from Tuesday into the weekend, and the Weather Service says a coastal flood advisory is likely, with a watch under consideration. Thursday is the one dry day of the week. Farther off, a low in the southwestern Gulf has a 50 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression by late week; the forecasters expect no direct impact here, though it feeds another wet weekend.

Ordinance 2026-16 gets its first reading at the city commission's 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday at City Hall. Wednesday's issue could only tell you what the agenda said, because the packet would not open; it did over the weekend, and here is what the ordinance does. It writes the August referendum's rule into the city code: no paid parking anywhere in the city, downtown and the beach accesses included, without a majority of city voters saying yes to a specific area the commission has first named by resolution. It exempts the golf course and the airport, where paid parking already exists, and special-event parking for up to 30 days, and it says in so many words that the downtown program ending Nov. 18 is not exempt. Then it repeals the citizen ordinance you passed and puts its own in that ordinance's place, protected by a supermajority requirement for any future change. Under Charter Section 141 the commission needs a supermajority, four of the five, at each of two readings; the effective date is Nov. 19, the day after the meters go dark. The city's own fiscal note puts the revenue it is giving up at about $1.2 million a year. Also on the agenda: Chuck Hall accepts the Sounds on Centre 20th anniversary proclamation, Deputy City Manager Glenn Akramoff presents an operational efficiencies overview, City Attorney Teresa Prince briefs the commission on new state laws, the $300,000 watershed planning grant and its $100,000 match, the Pledger defense authorization under a second case number, one appointment to the Planning Advisory Board, and something new: Nassau Humane Society Executive Director Chantel Scherer presents a City Commission Dog of the Month. The 5 p.m. workshop is cancelled.

Oct. 10 is the date we flagged in August as the day the fall calendar piles up, and it has: five events downtown, then a race weekend on top. The Arts Market is back on Centre Street for the second Saturday, 9 to 1. The museum's fourth annual Graveside Chronicles runs guided tours through Bosque Bello Cemetery from 9 a.m., last tour at 4; the cemetery is still waiting on the National Park Service, whose Oct. 2 weekly list again carried no Nassau County entry. The Hispanic Heritage Music and Food Festival fills 14 S. Third St. from 1 to 9, with food from Cuban and Puerto Rican to Honduran and Venezuelan, a Third Street stage from 1:30 and Rumberos de Tampa Bay closing the night on the Green Turtle stage at 7. The Island Art Association's Second Saturday Art Walk opens at 5 at 18 N. Second St., and Gunhild Carling plays the Jazz Festival's Saturday night at 7 at 2700-2 Atlantic Ave. Then on Sunday the Amelia Island Half Marathon and 12K leave Main Beach Park at 7:30 a.m., after Saturday's 5 p.m. 5K, and the courses run through town, so expect closures that morning. The weekend forecast is wet again, and we will sort out what that does to all of this on Friday.

The forecasters say the water will come up around each high tide this week. Where does it show up first in your neighborhood, which street, which corner, which parking lot, and how long does it take to drain? We would like to build a list of the island's and the mainland's low spots from the people who live on them. Hit reply and let us know. We read every response.

There is a weed in nearly every yard in Nassau County that you have pulled, cursed and picked off your socks. According to Observer nature columnist Angela Ray, it has a claim no other Florida plant can match. What is the plant, and what is the claim?

Answer: Spanish needle. Ray's column says this one unassuming plant produces about one-third of all the nectar in Florida, which is why the pollinators love it even if you do not. Its young leaves are edible too, with a nutrient profile she compares to kale.

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