Habitat holds hurricane seminar
The 2019 hurricane season is already a month along and the rainy season is here in full force.
Officials again urge preparedness in the event a major storm comes our way.
William Floyd, of the Lee County Emergency Management Office, spoke Thursday at another Lee County sponsored hurricane seminar, this time at the offices of Habitat for Humanity at 1288 N. Tamiami Trail in North Fort Myers.
Floyd urged attendees to have a plan: It only takes one big storm to make hurricane season a bad one. There was a “slow” hurricane season in 1992, with just one hurricane – Andrew, which pummeled Florida.
Igdalia Acevedo, home ownership advisor for Habitat, said this is the second year Habitat has opened its offices up to emergency management, keeping in mind those who have Habitat homes.
“We’re getting people informed on what to do in the event of a huge storm. We’ve had so many homeowners close on their houses this year and last, we invited them, too,” Acevedo said.
There were several Habitat homeowners at the seminar, who had the advantage of having storm shutters come with their homes.
The rest were residents who took in Floyd’s presentation, which included pictures what some of the worst damage inflicted by recent hurricanes.
The forecast for this year is for us to have 13 named storms five hurricanes with two of them major, which is right around the average.
Early on, the conditions are ripe for tropical development in the gulf, with temperatures of 90 degrees, prime “fuel” for hurricane development.
Floyd showed the flood zone maps which determine who will get evacuated. During Irma in 2017, more than 300,000 were evacuated. This created a problem.
“Our neighbors to the north and south of us were also evacuated, which is why we had the tie-ups on the interstates. Everybody was evacuating – 6-and-a-half million,” Floyd said.
Irma’s track, originally set to go east of the state, kept shifting west until the forecast had it going 30 miles off the west coast, bringing up to 18 feet of storm surge.
Luckily, dry air to the west helped weaken the storm, it got caught up in Cuba, and finally made a turn over Collier County. The storm surge threat was averted, but there was heavy flooding in North Fort Myers and Lehigh.
Ultimately, Floyd said that if it happens again, it’s important to have a plan to evacuate, have enough supplies to last up to a week, make sure you have your important papers, get to a shelter ASAP if necessary, and fill the car up with gas.
“The plans we make in our office are not going to work if our citizens don’t plan for themselves and follow that plan,” Floyd said. “If you fail to plan, it causes havoc with our plans. Those who can evacuate should.”