Facing a Dire Storm
Forecast in Florida,
Officials Delayed
Evacuation
YES.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — As Hurricane Ian charged toward the western coast of Florida this week, the warnings from forecasters were growing more urgent. Life-threatening storm surge threatened to deluge the region from Tampa all the way to Fort Myers.
But while officials along much of that coastline responded with orders to evacuate on Monday, emergency managers in Lee County held off, pondering during the day whether to tell people to flee, but then deciding to see how the forecast evolved overnight.
In the days before Hurricane Ian made landfall, forecasters predicted significant storm surge along Florida’s coast. Despite the warnings, officials in Lee County waited a day later than other coastal counties to announce evacuation orders.
The delay, an apparent violation of the meticulous evacuation strategy the county had crafted for just such an emergency, may have contributed to catastrophic consequences that are still coming into focus as the death toll continues to climb.
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Lee County, which includes the hard-hit seaside community of Fort Myers Beach, as well as the towns of Fort Myers, Sanibel and Cape Coral, did not issue a mandatory evacuation order for the areas likely to be hardest hit until Tuesday morning, a day after several neighboring counties had ordered their most vulnerable residents to flee.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — As Hurricane Ian charged toward the western coast of Florida this week, the warnings from forecasters were growing more urgent. Life-threatening storm surge threatened to deluge the region from Tampa all the way to Fort Myers.
But while officials along much of that coastline responded with orders to evacuate on Monday, emergency managers in Lee County held off, pondering during the day whether to tell people to flee, but then deciding to see how the forecast evolved overnight.
Lee County Announced Evacuation Orders After Other Coastal Counties
The delay, an apparent violation of the meticulous evacuation strategy the county had crafted for just such an emergency, may have contributed to catastrophic consequences that are still coming into focus as the death toll continues to climb.
…
Lee County, which includes the hard-hit seaside community of Fort Myers Beach, as well as the towns of Fort Myers, Sanibel and Cape Coral, did not issue a mandatory evacuation order for the areas likely to be hardest hit until Tuesday morning, a day after several neighboring counties had ordered their most vulnerable residents to flee.
If you make life and death decisions for others based on how many strands of spaghetti in the models show your people getting a direct hit you are making life and death decisions on too fine an edge.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis and his state emergency management director also said the earlier forecasts had predicted the brunt of the storm’s fury would strike farther north.
“There is a difference between a storm that’s going to hit north Florida that will have peripheral effects on your region, versus one that’s making a direct impact,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference on Friday in Lee County. “And so what I saw in southwest Florida is, as the data changed, they sprung into action.”
“Too late”, governor, to use your own words, it was too late. Nobody “sprung” into action, it was too late for springing. In your words it was time for “hunkering down.” You have to make decisions before springing is an option that is foreclosed to you. DeSantis agreed with Lee County's assessment, in other words! DeSantis had an emergency management director; DeSantis is not hesitant about reaching into local jurisdictions and overruling local officials. He did not because he seconded their wrong, catastrophically wrong, assessment.
But while the track of Hurricane Ian did shift closer to Lee County in the days before it made landfall, the surge risks the county faced — even with the more northerly track — were becoming apparent as early as Sunday night.
Yes
At that point, the National Hurricane Center produced modeling showing a chance of a storm surge covering much of Cape Coral and Fort Myers. Parts of Fort Myers Beach, even in that case, had a 40 percent chance of a six-foot-high storm surge, according to the surge forecasts.
Lee County’s emergency planning documents had set out a time-is-of-the-essence strategy, noting that the region’s large population and limited road system make it difficult to evacuate the county swiftly. Over years of work, the county has created a phased approach that expands the scope of evacuations in proportion to the certainty of risk. “Severe events may require decisions with little solid information,” the documents say.
There you go. Lee County cut it too close for their local situation even per their own planning docs. Terrible!
The county’s plan proposes an initial evacuation if there is even a 10 percent chance that a storm surge will go six feet above ground level; based on a sliding scale, the plan also calls for an evacuation if there is a 60 percent chance of a three-foot storm surge.
Along with the forecasts on Sunday night, updated forecasts on Monday warned that many areas of Cape Coral and Fort Myers had between a 10 and a 40 percent chance of a storm surge above six feet, with some areas possibly seeing a surge of more than nine feet.
Over those Monday hours, neighboring Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties issued evacuation orders, while Sarasota County announced that it expected evacuation orders to be in effect for the following morning. In Lee County, however, officials said they were waiting to make a more up-to-date assessment the following morning.
At that point, the National Hurricane Center produced modeling showing a chance of a storm surge covering much of Cape Coral and Fort Myers. Parts of Fort Myers Beach, even in that case, had a 40 percent chance of a six-foot-high storm surge, according to the surge forecasts.
Lee County’s emergency planning documents had set out a time-is-of-the-essence strategy, noting that the region’s large population and limited road system make it difficult to evacuate the county swiftly. Over years of work, the county has created a phased approach that expands the scope of evacuations in proportion to the certainty of risk. “Severe events may require decisions with little solid information,” the documents say.
There you go. Lee County cut it too close for their local situation even per their own planning docs. Terrible!
The county’s plan proposes an initial evacuation if there is even a 10 percent chance that a storm surge will go six feet above ground level; based on a sliding scale, the plan also calls for an evacuation if there is a 60 percent chance of a three-foot storm surge.
Along with the forecasts on Sunday night, updated forecasts on Monday warned that many areas of Cape Coral and Fort Myers had between a 10 and a 40 percent chance of a storm surge above six feet, with some areas possibly seeing a surge of more than nine feet.
Over those Monday hours, neighboring Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties issued evacuation orders, while Sarasota County announced that it expected evacuation orders to be in effect for the following morning. In Lee County, however, officials said they were waiting to make a more up-to-date assessment the following morning.
And DeSantis let them be. Dereliction.
“Once we have a better grasp on all of that dynamic, we will have a better understanding about what areas we may call for evacuation, and, at the same time, a determination of what shelters will be open,” the Lee County Manager, Roger Desjarlais, said on Monday afternoon.
No roger on that Roger, you didn’t dodge her. You were too desjarlate. You ignored even your own planning manual!
But forecasters with the National Hurricane Center were growing more explicit in their warnings for the region. In a 5 p.m. update on Monday, they wrote that the highest risk for “life-threatening storm surge” was in the area from Fort Myers to Tampa Bay.
“Residents in these areas should listen to advice given by local officials,” the hurricane center wrote. New modeling showed that some areas along Fort Myers Beach were more likely than not to see a six-foot surge.
“Once we have a better grasp on all of that dynamic, we will have a better understanding about what areas we may call for evacuation, and, at the same time, a determination of what shelters will be open,” the Lee County Manager, Roger Desjarlais, said on Monday afternoon.
No roger on that Roger, you didn’t dodge her. You were too desjarlate. You ignored even your own planning manual!
But forecasters with the National Hurricane Center were growing more explicit in their warnings for the region. In a 5 p.m. update on Monday, they wrote that the highest risk for “life-threatening storm surge” was in the area from Fort Myers to Tampa Bay.
“Residents in these areas should listen to advice given by local officials,” the hurricane center wrote. New modeling showed that some areas along Fort Myers Beach were more likely than not to see a six-foot surge.
NHC presumed there were competent, prudent local officials in Lee County who would not play russian roulette with peoples’ lives, even when most of the spaghetti was landing on their plate.
Mr. Ruane, the county commissioner, said that one challenge the county faced was that the local schools had been designed to be shelters and that the school board had made the decision to keep them open on Monday.
By the following morning, at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Mr. Desjarlais announced a partial evacuation order but emphasized that “the areas being evacuated are small” compared with a previous hurricane evacuation.
The county held off on further evacuations, despite a forecast that showed potential surge into areas not covered by the order. Officials expanded their evacuation order later in the morning.
By the middle of the afternoon, Lee County officials were more urgent in their recommendation: “The time to evacuate is now, and the window is closing,” they wrote in a message on Facebook.
That’s TUESDAY AFTERNOON! The window was indeed closing, was almost shut and bolted. Twelve hour later Gov. DeSantis told them evacuation was too late! Lee County and DeSantis gave the ninth most populous county in the state twelve hours to get out in a local situation that needed more time according to its own planning documents and in local conditions worsening by the hour.
Katherine Morong, 32, said she had been prepared earlier in the week to hunker down and ride out the storm based on the guidance from local officials. The sudden evacuation order on Tuesday morning left her scrambling, she said, as she set out in her car in the rain.
“The county could have been more proactive and could have given us more time to evacuate,” she said. On the road toward the east side of the state, she said, she was driving through torrents of rain, with tornadoes nearby.
Katherine Morong, 32, said she had been prepared earlier in the week to hunker down and ride out the storm based on the guidance from local officials. The sudden evacuation order on Tuesday morning left her scrambling, she said, as she set out in her car in the rain.
“The county could have been more proactive and could have given us more time to evacuate,” she said. On the road toward the east side of the state, she said, she was driving through torrents of rain, with tornadoes nearby.
Ms. Morong ought to replace Mr. Desjarlate as County Manager.
Joe Brosseau, 65, said he did not receive any evacuation notice. As the storm surge began pouring in on Wednesday morning, he said, he considered evacuating but realized it was too late.
Too Late Desjarlate!
Some residents said they had seen the forecasts but decided to remain at home anyway — veterans of many past storms with dire predictions that had not come to pass.
And for them their death certificates read that the cause of death was “stupidity.”
“People were made aware, they were told about the dangers and some people just made the decision that they did not want to leave,” Mr. DeSantis said on Friday.
Well, you didn’t give them much time, governor, and your evacuation orders were not comprehensive, not urgent, and not timely.
Joe Santini, a retired physician’s assistant, said he would not have fled his home even if there had been an evacuation order issued well before the storm. He said that he had lived in the Fort Myers area most of his life, and that he would not know where else to go.
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Lee County is now an epicenter of devastation, with mass destruction…
A much needed article from the New York Times. I do not fault Roger Desjarlais or Governor DeSantis for the property destruction from Ian. Property cannot be moved. I do have questions about how FP&L, a state utility under DeSantis' regulation, had its entire grid knocked out, how communication, even through 911 was disabled, how the water system was inoperable so that not even hospitals had enough, but my concern with those hardware issues is overwhelmingly on their affect on peoples lives. I anticipate that the death toll on the west coast, principally in Lee County, will surpass that of Hurricane Andrew and I have an angry dread that the people who died after Ian passed over died because of these hardware failures.