New Hillsborough Evacuation Zones - Katja Miller

Hillsborough County is updating its hurricane evacuation maps. We talk with Katja Miller at the county's Office of Emergency Management about what that means for your hurricane plans. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here Beyond the News. We're heading into another
hurricane season and that means the possibility of evacuations. We
hope they don't have to happen, but if they do happen,
there as some new information. It's updated periodically, and Hillsborough
County has new evacuation maps. We have Katya Miller on
the line. She's the Emergency Operations Section chief for Hillsborough

(00:22):
County and welcome into Beyond the News.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Well, first of all, this is updated periodically. Why do
you make those changes and what's the purpose.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, we receive updated data from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration also known as NOAH about every three to
five years, and that data is specific to storm surge risk.
So when we receive that data, we want to make
sure that that information has been updated for the county

(00:54):
and those evacuation zones and that they align with our
current parcels and any new development that we may have
in the area.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Now, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, if you're living close
to Tampa Bay, then you're likely in some sort of
evacuation zone. But one thing I noticed from the map
is that many of those evacuation zones, the lower grades
A and B and such. There are five overall, and

(01:24):
those who are living close to rivers and creeks may
not think of themselves as being vulnerable to storm surge,
but many of those zones extend upriver. So if you
could address that for us.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yes, absolutely, so you know storm surge. What I like
to tell folks is storm surge is what you think
of as the ocean is coming to your door, right,
It's the scary stuff that we want to make sure
that people are going away from that because that can
be very dangerous. And as you stated, we can see

(01:59):
those evacuation zones along our riverine areas. So of course
we have the Alifaya, we have the Hillsborough County or
Hillsboro River, and then we have the Little Manate and
that storm surge can push all the way into those
riverine areas. So those areas have a heightened risk of
not just storm surge, but also very important for them

(02:19):
to understand their flood zones because they can also be
inundated by riverine flooding that could be due to higher
levels of rainfall or just inland flooding from heavy rainfall,
which is a lot of what we saw in twenty
twenty four.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Now, some of the changes you're making to the map
but involve upgrades and others involve downgrades as far as
their letter grades. And in some cases it's not so
much about the elevation where you are as it is
about the elevation of your evacuation route that you would
have to take.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, absolutely, so there are some areas that folks may notice.
We're not in evacuation zones previously, but with this new data,
we did see that major thoroughfares were going to be
potentially impacted by storm surge, and so any type of
ingress or egress could be impacted for not only themselves,

(03:14):
but also for first responders. So some of those areas
you'll see have been upgraded into a zone and many
of those being Zone E, which would be the last
that we would call.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
How can you look up your address and find your
evacuation zone?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, so if you're in Hillsborough County, you can go
to our HCFL dot gov forward slash Stay Safe page
and you can look up your emergency evacuation shelters. We
have a map tool that you can type in your
address and it'll tell you exactly which zone you're located
in and if emergency shelters are a part of your plan,

(03:50):
you can also look up which shelters are nearest to
your home for just some forward planning, and then, of
course always check with your local outlets or with Hillsborough
County officials for which shelters might be open. If you
are in other counties, all you simply have to do
is type in your county's name and ask for evacuation

(04:11):
zone lookup and you should be able to easily find
their link.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Katia Miller, the Emergency Operations Section Chief for Hillsborough County,
talking about the new Hillsborough County evacuation maps. Thank you
very much for joining us on Beyond the News.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Thank you