Hurricane Hermine swept through Florida’s panhandle and side-swiped Tallahassee last month. Though it was only a Cat 1 hurricane with minimal winds, it nevertheless created havoc in the tree-loving state capital.
It seems Florida’s hiatus from hurricanes over the last 11 years, and since 1985 for Tallahassee specifically, had left citizens and local government with a short memory on how to survive and thrive through the recovery process.
Much has been written by the press and especially by The Tallahassee Democrat which, in our opinion, did an excellent job of covering the response and the pitfalls encountered.
Afterward, Barney Bishop, Chairman of Citizens for Responsible Spending, asked us to be the chair and vice chair of the private-sector-driven Post-Hurricane Recovery Task Force.
Along with 14 other individuals, including former state agency heads and chiefs of staff, private business men and women, association executives, communication specialists, and retired business executives, we worked for a month going over three areas we concluded needed to be closely examined: Chain-of-command, Communications and Priorities.
To assist us, we requested staff expertise from Leon County and the City of Tallahassee, along with the help of Kevin Peters, the Leon County Emergency Management director, Barry Moline of the Florida Municipal Electric Association, and Fred Shelfer, CEO of Goodwill Big Bend.
Our mission: Don’t make this a gotcha’ report, but look forward to lessons learned and how counties and cities can be better prepared for the next natural disaster.
Though we only met four times, because we wanted to get our recommendations out quickly in case there was another storm this year, we have reviewed a lot of materials and asked a lot of questions, and as a result we have issued some common-sense recommendations on how to proceed in the future.
The task force members split into three groups: Before the Storm, During the Storm and After the Storm, and each group looked at the three areas of concern previously cited.
Earlier this week we released the recommendations, and we believe we have some solid ideas that all counties and cities in Florida should heed.
First, it was enlightening to learn that by Florida statue, counties are in charge of all natural disasters.
While that certainly doesn’t let cities off of the hook, it does mean that the county takes the lead and cities should cooperate with the county’s Emergency Management director, or the designated lead according to each county’s Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP).
The CEMP is the governing document for all of the protocols that need to be established before a storm arrives, and then annually the county and cities, importantly along with the state, should drill on this to ensure it performs operationally as it’s envisioned on paper.
Of course, the most important issue besides saving lives is to get the electricity back on as soon as possible. This is easier said than done.
We all know we’re going to lose electricity, so the key is how can all of the different governmental entities work together to make the recovery as smooth as possible, along with the utility departments affected.
Suffice it to say, no utility can get the job done without help from other utilities. Whether that’s working with other municipal utilities or investor-owned utilities or electric cooperatives, it’s critical that mutual aid agreements be negotiated in great detail in advance of the storm, even to the extent of knowing in advance what the cost is of utility crews from other companies waiting for instructions, or actually providing assistance.
Without pointing fingers, we have five major recommendations, among a host of others, that we hope local and even state government will review and consider:
-- 1. Chain-of-command is most important because someone has to be in charge and that person should be the public face before, during and after the natural disaster.
-- 2. Accurate and timely information communicated to the public on a daily basis is essential if we expect people to follow the instructions provided. Because the electricity will go out, it’s apparent that smart phones and texting are the best ways to communicate. The second-best way is through radio stations. The designated county official should clearly and repeatedly inform residents in advance of the storm where water, ice and food will be available at pre-designated places around the county at a particular time each day after the storm, so residents will automatically know where to go.
-- 3. Counties and utilities must coordinate lists of all important facilities that must receive priority attention for restoration of electric service such as law enforcement, fire and EMS, hospitals and other key medical facilities, nursing homes, adult living facilities, special needs families, juvenile justice, hospice and child care facilities -- probably in that order.
-- 4. The state should work with all counties so each has an identical or at least similar e-portal website that can easily be accessed by a mobile app -- considering smart phones will be the primary communications tool. This website should allow both public and certain private entities to input real-time information regarding which hotels have rooms, which grocery stores are open, which big-box retailers are open, which insurance agent’s offices are open for claims intake, which companies can provide debris or tree removal, and so forth. We believe there may already be in existence such a website, and if so, then it needs to be replicated; if not, it needs to be designed.
-- 5. The state should consider offering a procurement, and thereby use the state's immense purchasing power, so that emergency generators can be bought at the lowest cost possible and then perhaps offered through utilities on a no-interest/low-interest basis. In that way, the generators can be available to low- or middle-income residents who can be paid off on a long-term basis by adding a few dollars to their monthly utility bill. This will allow individuals and families to keep their refrigerators/freezers and stoves operational for a few days so they don’t lose food they’ll need to survive; at the same time it will help reduce the pressure on utility crews.
We have many other good recommendations, such as considering trimming trees at a 10-foot radius as investor-owned utilities do, rather than the 3- or 6-foot radius some utilities use. As is the case with all good ideas, the cost versus the benefit must always be a part of the equation.
But, we feel these are the most important recommendations and they should be explored sooner rather than later by state and local government.
Our report is certainly not the definitive study on how best to recover from a natural disaster.
It is, however, the result of a group of dedicated private-sector individuals who do have experience in surviving a storm as some former agency heads who served under Gov. Jeb Bush when hurricanes were seemingly an everyday experience. In fact, one of our task force members was a former Miami state legislator who lived through Hurricane Andrew!
We understand that Sen. Jack Latvala is going to ask that the Legislature look at post-hurricane recovery and we believe that’s a great idea -- one that needs to be pursued.
Finally, we want to applaud Gov. Rick Scott for his out-of-the-box thinking, which resulted in the Florida Department of Transportation proactively working to remove trees that were obstacles to utility crews trying to repair power lines. In addition, the governor's color-coded chart of where FDOT had worked, where they were working, and where they would go next -- with estimated completion times -- is something emergency officials should replicate in every future natural disaster.
In that regard, there was a silver lining for Tallahassee. We had a governor on site, who was committed to getting state agencies to provide assistance where it could help speed the recovery.
Jeff Kottkamp, Esq. is a former Florida lieutenant governor and J. Sam Bell, P.E. (Ret.) is a former utility expert with 45 years of experience both with investor-owned utilities and with the City of Tallahassee. The full report is available at www.nebatallahassee.org
