Hurricane Ian Anniversary - Rich Collins - Sarasota County

One year ago Thursday (28th) Hurricane Ian made landfall in Southwest Florida. We speak with Sarasota County emergency services director Rich Collins about lessons learned and the ongoing challenges of recovery.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News. We're putting some podcasts together as we
approached the first anniversary of Hurricane Ian, which of course reached the west coast
of Florida in late September we oftwenty twenty two. We're speaking with Rich
Collins, Emergency Services director of SaraSota County, to talk about the experience
there and the process of recovery.Rich Collins, thank you very much for

(00:21):
joining us on Beyond the News.Gordon, happy to be here. Well,
this is kind of an expansive questionto start out here, but what
lessons have you been able to applyfrom your experience with Ian? Were any
of them applicable with our brush withthe Dalia this year? So, Gordon,
you know, I think for methat the story is actually the tale

(00:44):
of two storms. We started outand I would go back actually a couple
of years to Hurricane IRMA and IRMA, you know, somewhat similar situation to
Ian. And after Irma, wehad we had implemented all of our emergency
plans, put people over twenty thousandpeople in shelters, and all of the

(01:06):
work that was done post Irma resultedin an after action process that interviewed over
three hundred individuals across the county andultimately ended up reviewed by the form of
FEMA Administrator and from emergency managers aroundthe state, and we implemented ninety three
enhancements after IRMA. That all ofthose were activated for Ian and I would

(01:32):
tell you the work that was doneprepared us for Ians. So there's so
many things that are slightly different inSarasota. You go to another community,
you may find that they have sheltersthat open up at various levels and various
areas. In Sarasota County, weopen up all of what we call hurricane

(01:52):
evacuation centers, fourteen of them,all at the same time. And why
do we do that? Post IRMA. We learned that it is imperative to
remove barriers for citizens to take action. So all of our hurricane evacuation centers
open at the same time, sothat a citizen knows this is my closest
evacuation center and this is where Ican go. All of our evacuation centers

(02:15):
take pets. We stopped using theterminology mandatory and voluntary evacuation. Those things
create ambiguity, and the citizen says, well, should I take action,
is it should I go or shouldn'tI go? We issue an evacuation order,
which means that it is in ouropinion and risk that you should leave

(02:37):
the area we're asking you to leave, and so we use just plane evacuation
orders you should leave, And weimplemented ways to better reflect where those evacuation
areas are in those levels when weactivate for a storm. There's just so
many things that we've implemented since IRMAthat we utilized in Ian that I think

(02:59):
a ltimately helped us have an effectiveresponse to Ian. Now to the follow
up after Ian, I would saythat some of the biggest lessons we learned.
You know, Ian was an interestingstorm. I mean, we had
a thousand year rain event flooding inthe south part of the county, across
the state up the spine of thepeninsula. We had seventy five covered and

(03:23):
unable to transit during over a portionof the county for I think it was
twelve or twenty four hours. Madeit difficult to get resources in here right
away, especially when the harder impactedareas were south of us as well.
So what we learned is that wehad two thousand employees across this county taking
care of citizens. And that's justin the county. That's not including the

(03:46):
municipalities and their employees that were workinghard to take care and respond to our
citizens post storm. Many of themhad damage in their own homes. They
didn't know how their families were doing, they didn't know what they were going
to go back to after that,and they worked for days. And so
one of the things that we've implementedsince then is greater training. We've worked

(04:10):
with the state and we are currentlypursuing contracts that we can bring in support
for our shelters, the hurricane evacuationcenters after the storm, so that we
can get our employees back to theirfamilies and they can take care of those
that they need things that they needto do. So that was a big
change. The other thing we've doneis worked very closely with our school district.

(04:31):
Our school is an incredible partner withus in how they help us with
the hurricane evacuation centers. All ofthem are in schools, so we partnered
with them this year, retooled allof our training, changed up some of
the organizational management and how we worktogether in the shelters that we utilized in

(04:51):
Adalia that we feel was much moreeffective. So that was a change.
And the other thing we've done toother things that we've taken a look at
how we process resource requests inside ourEmergency Operations Center. We've tweaked that to
make it easier, opened, ifyou will, more doors to get resource

(05:11):
requests in so we can manage them. And then how we deal with continuity
of government generally that had been partof what we deal in the room.
We've actually created a subunit that worksgetting government back up and running while we're
working the disaster. Those are probablythe three biggest things. But ultimately I

(05:32):
think we had a pretty effective responseto IAN and have continued to refine those
plans. How long was the processof getting things back to resembling normal and
are there still visible signs of damageor things that are still needing to be
fixed after IAN? So you know, when you compare, you know IRMA

(05:58):
had three hundred thousand in cubic yardsof debris across the county unincorporated County Gordon.
When we look at IAN that wentto three million cubic yards of debris.
The team did a phenomenal job ofgetting the debris cleaned up over ninety
plus almost one hundred percent by theholidays, which was absolutely amazing the amount

(06:18):
of work that was done to makethat happen. But when you travel south
in the county, you can stillsee blue tarps on roofs, you know,
and there are people still working toget their houses repaired. Whether it's
in the city of Northport or unincorporatedCounty or Venice, there are still damage
that people are working to get repaired. A lot of that is, you

(06:40):
know, dealing with insurance agencies ashomeowners are working through that. But I
will tell you our state has beenextremely supportive. They worked with us right
after Ian. We had an issuewith getting THEMA approval to pick up debris
in our mobile home parks. Thestate director worked with us and we pushed
back on THEEMA to get that approval, which we did and that was awesome

(07:05):
for us to help those citizens inneed in the soft part of the county.
And FEMA is still here working.I mean, we have one hundred
and fifty plus about one hundred andfifty two I believe citizens or residences that
are still in some type of stateor FEMA supplied housing, whether that's a
trailer on their property or hotel,or they're in a rental home, So

(07:26):
there are still people working. Iwill say we have an extremely resilient and
awesome community of residents that work,are working with us and working through FEMA
to get the things taken care ofto get back to normal for them.
Have you had any reports or numbersof people who are still dealing with damage

(07:46):
and had to move away for thetime being while they're making those repairs.
Well from a FEMA stamp, Butas I mentioned that there's one hundred and
fifty two residences that we know ofthat are either in some type of FEMA
supplied housing or state supplied housing,whether that's a trailer on their property or
some type of rental home, orthey've moved to another area where the home

(08:07):
is being repaired. Are there stillof repairs and improvements work going on on
public facilities that's related to IAN?So you know, we we have a
total of about one hundred and sixtytwo million dollars worth of damages on the
government side from from IAN. Abouteighty three eight almost eighty four million of

(08:31):
that is from debris removal alone.The rest of it like forty two million
is in our protective measures things thatactions that we took pre impost storm to
respond and then uh, there's damageon you know, some of the roads,
water control facilities, some of ourbuildings. Most of that has been
repaired since the storm. And nowin fact, you know, we're dealing

(08:54):
with the Adelia and some of thedamages from from that storm. And what
are the some of the initiatives thathave grown out of your experiences with all
these ice storms at the IRMAA Nidaliathat you're undertaking to mitigate future storms are
You're looking at physical mitigation, raisingroads and things like that. So that

(09:16):
is an ongoing process. There ismitigation funding from the state. We have
what's called the Local Mitigation Strategy Teamthat is from the cities the county looking
at various projects. There is multiplemillions dollars worth of projects that have been
submitted to do things to further enhanceour infrastructure. But you know, Gordon,

(09:41):
I mean, just take a lookat what Fort Myers and the Barrier
Islands out there have faced. Whenwe live in a pretty vulnerable area and
that's why we take things so seriously. When you look at Hurricane Dalia,
it was a rapidly intensifying storm.And you know that is like this new

(10:01):
thing that's developed over the last severalyears where you know, twenty four hours
before lap Wall, it's not evenbarely a tropical storm, and so those
storms spent up very quickly. Welive on a vulnerable coast from the Big
Bend all the way down to FortMyers who have a very shallow coastline that
allows for large storm surges, andso I think the biggest thing, you

(10:26):
know, we take whatever action wecan to continue to mitigate to those types
of things, But ultimately we allneed to be prepared and our citizens need
be prepared to take action when weask them to do things like evacuate because
of potential damage from a storm.I guess final question here to sum up
with Rich Collins, Emergency Services Directorof Sarasota County. Do you think that

(10:52):
Sarasota County now is more resilient afterhaving come through Ian and the storms before
and after before and after? Ithink I think we are. You know,
Gordon, we have a lot ofnew residents. A lot of folks
have joined this beautiful area we callhome to live, work and play,
and a lot of them are newto the effects of a hurricane, and

(11:16):
I think by the experiences we've gonethrough, I think our citizenry has a
better understanding of what a storm cando and effectively takes the action they need
to when we ask them too.We don't take it lightly. We take
the risk very seriously. When we'remaking a decision to do an evacuations,
it's out of making sure that ourcitizens are safe and that we can protect

(11:39):
them. And so I do thinkwe have a more resilient community and a
more educated community, which is absolutelyawesome when we asked them to take action.
Rage Collins, Emergency Services Director ofSarahsota County, Thank you for joining
us on Beyond the News. Thankyou