Toner’s last storm hurrah

BY PRU SOWER

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

This will be Irene Toner’s last hurricane season.

After 18 years as director of Monroe County’s emergency management office and a total of 36 years in the emergency management field, she is retiring at the end of June. How hard will it be for her to walk away, particularly with another five months left in the storm season?

The good news is that her replacement is Martin Senterfitt, who has a 28-year career in fire/rescue and emergency management. He is currently shadowing Toner to learn about Monroe County’s emergency planning but he was most recently the fire chief in Duval County, which encompasses Jacksonville, Fl., where his office oversees emergency management and planning. And before that he was deputy director and then director of that county’s emergency management division.

But even with a solid replacement, Toner says her retirement is bitter-sweet. She remembers storms where she slept in her office for three or four days as she helped managed the response. She takes pride that Monroe County is the only county in Florida with a dedicated weather station, located in Key West.

“These are the people who from June 1 to Nov. 30 are your best friends,” she laughs. “The communication with them is phenomenal. We all know each other. And it’s a long summer.”

She will particularly regret leaving her county coworkers (“the ultimate staff”), being unable to attend the hurricane parties they throw and the colleagues she is leaving in the county and local fire/rescue departments.

“It will be quite an adjustment. But I’m looking forward to a vacation in August if we want. I’ve never taken time off between June and November,” she said.

Toner and her husband will continue to live in Key Largo in at least the near future until he retires. But Toner says she will always have an eye on the sky.

“I do have a bucket list” of things she wants to do in retirement. “But I’ll be watching the storms closely,” she said.

Marty Senterfitt, Toner’s replacement, has some large shoes to fill. But he says that about 90 percent of the Monroe County Comprehensive Management Plan is identical to the same plan in Duval County, where he oversaw emergency services. Senterfitt’s first priority will be to get his staff up to speed. Of the five people in Monroe County Emergency Management, three, including Senterfitt, are new.

“The big challenge down here is simple geography. The county stretches 120 miles and it’s the proverbial ‘one way in, one way out,’” he said.

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