Thursday, May 25, 2000 | ||||||||
BE PREPARED Officials make hurricane plans focus of talks discussed By KEVIN HORAN Herald Staff Writer
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TAMPA - They talked about the "big picture," emergency response leaders did Wednesday, when talking about getting ready for hurricane season. They spoke of an integrated approach, of tying together the loose ends - from informing the public of approaching storms, to preparing much needed shelter space, to improving escape roads and more. And time and again, they stressed the importance of warning residents and visitors alike to see the big picture - as in just how big and deadly a hurricane can be. "People look at a forecasting map and see the projected path for a hurricane. It doesn't just affect that skinny line. It affects wide areas," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "We really need to do a better job of focusing on all the impacts of a hurricane," he said. Officials from around the state, country and globe trekked to Tampa this week to find some of that focus before the annual, six-month hurricane season kicks off June 1. Gathering at the 14th-Annual Governor's Hurricane Conference, they have plotted preparations for and - bracing for the worst - reaction to the massive monsters. A key first step in the race to ready for the storms will come on the home front, Gov. Jeb Bush said, when each family, each household in Florida, has to develop or update a personal plan of response for when the storms approach. And the storms will approach, he said, despite years of repeated near-misses. "We know it's not a question of whether a storm will strike our state, " Bush told an audience of about 1,000 gathered at the conference. Residents and visitors should know before that strike whether they live in an area likely to flood during heavy rains or tidal surges the storms bring, said Steve Seibert, secretary of the state's Department of Community Affairs, a key agency in hurricane preparation. They must keep in mind, he noted, that the storms dump torrential rains on wide areas, so flooding could come even though the hurricane languishes hundreds of miles away. People also need to know whether they need to evacuate during the storms, Seibert said, and , if so, whether they head to the shelter or ride out the storm with family or friends in a safe spot. If they head to a shelter, they have to know where the shelters sit, he added. Most of the information needed to develop such a plan residents can get from local emergency management leaders, like Manatee County's Public Safety Department. And if they need a little more help plotting a course, Bush said, they can turn to the state for a helping hand, including the www.floridadisaster.org Web site. There, they will find a chart to guide people through penciling together a plan. "We need to use the Internet," Bush said. "Make it our ally." It won't be the sole ally. The state has pledged some $18 million to upgrade shelter space, so residents and visitors will have safe places to turn to when the storms come. Lawmakers agreed with Bush on the plan to speed up projects to widen and enhance critical state roads that residents use to evacuate. State leaders have ratified the new building code for Florida, one that unifies a hodgepodge of building regulations from around the state and strengthens them to stand up to hurricane-force winds. And a governor-commissioned task force went so far as to recommend that the state reroute traffic on key sections of interstate highways so that it flows in only one direction as hurricanes approach - away from the storm. On the federal front, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have teamed with scientists from the National Aeronautic and Space Administration in using satellites and other technological advances to track tropical storms and predict their movement. That could play a critical role, when the advancement does come. But officials note how difficult it remains currently to predict movement for the storms. Computer models predicted late last season that Hurricane Irene would track up the west coast of Florida and make landfall in the panhandle. The storm didn't agree, however, veering eastward for a run up the east coast and an eventual strike in North Carolina. And Hurricane Lenny, the season's last storm, was the first ever to curl from west to east through the Caribbean Sea. "Even with all the technological advances, we still have limitations," Mayfield said. All of which make it all the more important for officials, residents and anyone else who might find their way to Florida during the hurricane season to look through a wide-angle lens when bracing for the tropical twisters. "We need to focus on the enormity (of hurricanes)," said Walter Revell, a Miami businessman who headed the state's hurricane evacuation task force last year. "The real message - the real secret - in all of this is," he added,"we simply must communicate better, cooperate and coordinate."
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