Hurricane Evacuation Workshop Hears “Why the Weatherman Worries”

 

A packed house at the Sugarloaf Volunteer Fire Station, including County Commissioner Michelle Coldiron, attended a community hurricane evacuation workshop Thursday night, with presentations by Jonathon Rizzo, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, National Weather Service, and Martin Senterfitt, Monroe County Emergency Management Director. Organized by Friends of the Lower Keys (FOLKs), the workshop focused on “Why the Weatherman Worries”: hurricane forecasters’ concerns about their inability to reliably predict rapid intensification of hurricanes, and the potential dangers to people trying to evacuate.

Rizzo discussed the many storms which have rapidly increased in intensity –within 24 hours –from a mere tropical storm to a Major Hurricane, Category 3 to 5, leaving inadequate time for forecasters to provide 48 hours notice to the County Emergency Management Director of landfall as a Major Hurricane.

Senterfitt, Monroe County’s Emergency Management Director, makes the call for mandatory evacuation. He explained that one of the responses to a rapid storm intensification leaving less than 48 hours notice is to order “shelter in place in refuge of last resort” such as available schools and hospitals.  Rizzo also noted that 48 hour notice is really only 45 hour notice because of the timing of data collection.

Under state law, permanent residents must be able to evacuate the Keys in 24 hours. A 48 hour “early evacuation” window for permanent residents is now being considered because Marathon, Key West and Islamorada want to increase their development caps to build multi-family rental apartment complexes but don’t want to use their existing ROGOs. If approved, those cities plan to require these additional residents to evacuate at 48 hours.

“You could tell these experts were really concerned about the dangers of rapidly intensifying hurricanes in the Keys. Even a few hours matter when we have to evacuate on one road for everyone, across low lying causeways and bridges,” said Don DeMaria, one of the FOLKs’ members in attendance. “We can’t safely evacuate our existing population of permanent residents under these conditions, much less an increase of 4,000 permanent residents from the additional ROGOs the cities are trying to get, much less the 6,000 more permanent residents we’ll have from buildout of the existing ROGOs. It’s too many people and we have to just say no.”

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