(PENSACOLA) --- The rain came down hard yesterday; roads flooded in spots, and people still showed up to protest a data center here.
For the second time in less than a month, Escambia County residents gathered to protest proposed data centers. Though this time there were umbrellas and wet shoes at 222 W. Main St., the message and signs were the same as the last protest: our water, our land, and our community are not for sale to big tech.
Francesca Yabraian, candidate for Florida House of Representatives, District 1, stood in the downpour and laid it out plain.
"We're not gonna allow big tech to move forward,” Yabrian said. “We want a ban on all data centers, hyperscales and non-hyperscales.”
(Photo: Data center protest on July 12 at 222 W. Main St.)
That’s the demand residents have brought up at every city council and county commissioner meeting. Not just the big ones. Not just the ones with state incentives—all of them.
Brandy Johnson, writer of the petition against data centers in Escambia County, said the rain wasn’t going to stop her because the timeline is moving.
"The reason it was important for me to show up to the protest in the rain yesterday is that it is important that as a group we continue to inform the community that data centers are on the agenda for the Escambia County Board of Commissioners on July 23,” Johnson said. “There is a petition we all need to sign!”
Johnson encourages citizens to attend the commission meeting.
“It’s not over until we have ironclad legislation that leaves no loopholes for data centers,” Johnson said.
Johnny Thompson, candidate for Florida House of Representatives District 2, was also there. He spoke about why data centers don’t fit Escambia, noting that a data center in Escambia County is an unnecessary gamble with our community’s future.
“I came out in the rain, not because all data centers are inherently bad, but because they have to be developed incredibly responsibly, and I don’t have enough faith in our local government to do so,” Thompson said. “I’m worried our local government would be willing to provide subsidies without transparency, independent analysis, and meaningful public input”
The local protest is becoming a national trend. Groups across the country are pushing back too. A national day of protest against data centers is planned for July 18, according to Newsweek. The concern is the same coast to coast: rising utility costs, massive water demand, noise, land-use changes, and the speed of AI expansion without community input.
Humans First, a conservative advocacy group helping coordinate the national day, says the goal is to pressure local, state, and federal officials to protect communities. Escambia residents have been saying the same thing for weeks, just without the national banner. We got here first, even in the rain.
(Photo: Brandy Johnson and her son protesting in the rain July 12 at 222 W. Main St.)
The last protest drew people who had never been to a county meeting before. Yesterday’s protest drew them back, even with the weather. Citizens are learning the process and adding the dates to calendars. They’re learning the language: hyperscale, non-hyperscale, rezoning, quasi-judicial, and they’re rejecting it.
One thing is evident among all the confusion and fear: Escambia continues to organize, rain or shine, until the county bans data centers, large, medium, and small.
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