Posted on 06/10/2002 5:38:33 PM PDT by summer
Officials: Florida's emergency operations a model for the nation
Monday, June 10, 2002
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE - With no storms swirling in the Atlantic, the state emergency operations center is quiet. The big room is empty and all but one of five huge video screens are blank. The other just shows scattered thunderstorms crossing the Florida Panhandle.
But the first sign of a hurricane and the room will begin jumping with life.
"When you're in here and you feel the environment and look up at all five of those screens ... and you've got satellite up and you've got live feeds coming in and everybody is hustling to get stuff done, it's like a war room," said Craig Fugate, director of the state Division of Emergency Management.
The operations center has been held up as a model for emergency preparedness and response, a responsibility that takes on even more importance in a state where hurricanes are a way of life.
"It certainly is one of the best emergency operations centers I've ever been to," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "If anyone's got one better, I'd like to know where it is."
Fugate was appointed to his job last fall, but served as acting director last year and ran the operation center during storms such as Georges, which hit Key West before flooding the Panhandle in 1998, and Floyd, which skirted the state's entire east coast in 1999 causing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.
"Well before a storm threatens Florida we begin looking at it, determining if the storm track would potentially impact Florida," Fugate said. "Once a storm falls into a potential threat to the state of Florida we start gearing up our folks."
The operations center has several stations and rooms for personnel assigned to areas such as communications, transportation, public works, mass care and military support. Each state agency has staff assigned to the center during a hurricane.
Federal emergency officials are also given a station and state emergency workers are sent to county operations centers to report back about activities there.
The state's role is not to coordinate hurricane response for Florida's 67 counties, but to assist them during a storm, Fugate said.
"When a disaster overwhelms those local responders, they only come to one location - here - to tap into all the state resources and, if required, federal assistance," he said. "So they're not having to go to each state agency or each group trying to get information, trying to get resources."
Those staffing the center work with a central desk where decisions are made on evacuations, supplies and other issues. The governor also comes in and out of the center and is responsible for decisions such as whether traffic would be reversed on Interstate highways to help evacuations.
The philosophy on the Division of Emergency Management's role during hurricanes has changed considerably since Hurricane Andrew struck 10 years ago, emergency officials say.
"Ten years ago the state Division of Emergency Management was almost entirely reactive, they went in after the fact," said Wayne Sallade, the Charlotte County emergency management director. "Now we are just as much proactive as we are reactive."
People and supplies are sent around the state well before a hurricane strikes and are moved around if the landfall predictions change.
"Rather than reacting to everything that happens, we try to stay ahead of it and start anticipating what will be going on," Fugate said.
The task can be enormous, given the size of the state and the fact none of it is too far from the ocean.
"We may have Wilmington to evacuate, but they have Miami and Tampa and St. Petersburg, the whole bit," said Tom Ditt, a spokesman for the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management. "They have major metropolitan areas along the coast on both coasts."
Yet the center is doing an excellent job at handling the responsibility, said Mayfield.
"They're leading the way not only in the nation, but the world in preparing for and responding to hurricanes," he said, adding that emergency officials from around the United States and the Caribbean can learn from Florida's operation.
"I often suggest they go up to Tallahassee and look at how they've done things."
Congrats to FL's outstanding Emergency Operations! BTW, on a related thread:
Jeb recounts his own experience in Hurricane Andrew
You have ther words "Florida" and "recount" in the same post. What else do I need to say about the effectivenes and efficiency of Florida government.
- AC mains which power the local CO's (telephone central switching offices A/K/A as 'Central Office') *and* all those cell sites?
Do you really believe that? Granted Florida, the dumping grounds for the elderly of the nation, has a few more kooks per square mile than the national average.The warm weather attracts all kinds.
We also have the benefits that comes with the replanted elders.Do you ever wonder why they have other plans when ya'll come to the vacation state?LOL
While south Florida is the destination of choice for retired, cranky former New Yorkers,New Jersians etc, the rest of the state is attractive to relatively normal people. Funny how the "voting problems" originated from the strange leftist counties where the East Coast retirees meet the new Cuban illegals "searching for freedom". Florida is kharma in action!LOL
Maybe it's because of Hurricane Andrew or the elder population, but emergency preparedness here in Florida is TOPS. And, this is a mention from the Associated Press. Are they waking up? Have they now been Jebutized too? LOL
I like that! Florida ROCKS :)
I actually bought them to save; remember the red dress? And Jenna's and Barbara's? They're all included in the set. I can hardly wait for Jeb and Columba paper dolls.
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