Hurricane Irma spared Manatee County its worst. But it was enough to teach us a few things
Irma was expected to leave
Residents were urged to hunker down on the night of
Irma made it's second landfall in
About 25,000 people waited inside the 24 hurricane shelters opened at
First responders had been ordered off the streets by the time night fell that Sunday, and residents went to bed not knowing what they would wake up to.
But by daybreak Monday morning, news had spread that
More than 127,000 residents were left without power, however, and it would take more than a week for some to get electricity restored. Twelve homes were destroyed, 144 homes suffered major damage and 181 homes suffered minor damage. About 540,000 cubic yards of storm debris was collected by the county.
Being spared the devastation Hurricane Irma brought to other counties in
Irma's lessons
The biggest lesson learned was identifying the need to better educate
"Irma created the largest evacuation and sheltering operation in
While those residents were instructed to seek safety on higher ground, officials never anticipated that about 25,000 people would take refuge in public shelters.
"Last year was the first time we ever opened all the shelters," said
The timing of when evacuation orders are issued is based on behavior studies that ask residents about what they think they would do when faced with various scenarios of storm intensities and evacuation orders. Based on a 2017 study, emergency management officials predicted that 3,800 residents would go to shelters under a mandatory Level A evacuation.
The Harvey effect
But the study didn't account for the Hurricane Harvey effect.
More than two weeks before Irma made landfall in
"So people saw Hurricane Harvey and what Hurricane Harvey was doing to
One of the biggest changes since the 2005: the role of social media.
For the first-time Americans watched the destruction in real-time as meteorologists, journalists and storm chasers live-streamed and posted on social media as Harvey unleashed catastrophic damage and flooding on
On the same weekend,
The county was already saturated, with some areas having seen about two feet of water, and there was wide-spread fear about the possibility of what rain and the storm surge from Irma could do. They had already seen what Harvey did.
Burris feels the county could have done better on helping the public make better decisions. Many didn't know their evacuation zones, which was the start of bad decision-making. Of those who did evacuate, many didn't consider the zone of where they were evacuating to. For example, some evacuated to hotels near the waterfront in downtown
Many who spent days in shelters, probably didn't need to be there but it was a result of bad decision-making and the fear caused by Harvey, according to Burris.
Shelters not always best option
"It's not the place you want to be unless that's your only place to find safety," she said. "The school is never going to meet everyone's needs. A lot of people weren't prepared for the lack of comfort and the lack of privacy in the schools."
As a result, the county is focusing on better communication, education and awareness. Burris stresses this reminder: Run from water, which means evacuate and hide from wind, which means to take shelter.
"I hope we find better alternatives than a government shelter. Go stay with family and friends," Burris said. "Don't go far, but stay with family and friends. Or go stay at one of these hotels outside the evacuation areas."
Since last year, the demand for hurricane preparedness presentations giving by emergency management staff to local home owner's associations, businesses or other groups has doubled. Anyone interested in setting up a presentation can contact
An estimated 6.5 million Floridians evacuated out of the state ahead of Irma, clogging the major northbound routes:
In
"The biggest challenge was right after the storm, getting word to people that it was not safe to come out," Wells said.
Mass power outages left many traffic intersections not working and created a traffic nightmare, especially because people took to the streets as law enforcement was still working with cleanup crews to access and clear the roads.
"It takes us a while to get everyone in place," Wells said. "It's not the best part of the job, but it's something we know is going to happen after a storm."
Wells' deputies and officers from all the county's police departments worked 12-hour shifts and didn't take a day off for more than a week, as a result of Irma.
The unprecedented opening of every county shelter also provided the school district with a learning opportunity. The biggest lesson: the ideal staff size needed to keept many shelters open for an extended period of time, according to Hall. Had the aftermath here been worse, the district would have needed enough staff to rotate them to keep the shelters open.
Since the district never anticipated needing to open every shelter, each of the designated schools was not as prepared as they should have been. Every school now has a "shelter box" with the necessary supplies. Staff have also received additional training at the school level and district-level.
The last-minute decision to turn nearly every shelter into pet-friendly shelters taught important lessons as well. At one school, families had already been placed in what would have been the ideal area for pets by the time that decision was made, Hall explained, forcing pets to be placed in the media center. Not only was that not the ideal room, the media center specialist at that school also has severe pet allergies, which later made a deep-cleaning necessary. Every shelter also now has a tarp so it can set-up pet areas.
Another factor that Burris believes may have led people to evacuate unnecessarily was because they didn't have impact-resistant windows and doors, or shutters or other ways to cover and protect them. In the days leading up to Irma, local hardware stories could not keep up with the last minute demand for plywood.
Demand for shutters spikes
Local businesses that sell impact-resistant windows and doors as well as shutters were inundated with calls. But because those products are all custom made, there just is not enough time once a storm has already formed, something businesses were forced to explain repeatedly.
In the wake of Irma, however, demand went through the roof.
"We were swamped for about six to eight months after that, just swamped," said
Business seem to let up a bit after seasonal residents had left, but there was still a significant increase as summer got underway.
"A lot of it was estimates for hurricane, replacements for impact windows and doing service on products that got damaged during Irma," Huzel said.
While the demand for impact-resistant windows and doors seem to be on the rise, cost still makes products like shutters more popular.
Over and over, new customers come into Bradenton Window & Allied Products with similar stories about how they evacuated ahead of Irma because their windows and doors weren't protected and they didn't feel safe. It's something he can related to himself, he added, since it was the very reason he and his wife evacuated to stay with nearby family.
"People got so complacent" and now they want to be prepared for the next big storm, Huzel said. "I hope the next one won't be in my lifetime."
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