shelters - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T23:49:03Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/sheltersAlong the Coast: Virus makes hurricane shelter planning even more vitalhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-virus-makes-hurricane-shelter-planning-even-more-2020-05-20T17:08:09.000Z2020-05-20T17:08:09.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Rich Pollack</strong></p>
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<p>Should a hurricane threaten this year, residents could have to choose between leaving their homes to avoid water and wind or remaining home to avoid contracting a deadly and highly contagious virus.</p>
<p><br /> The decision, emergency managers say, is an easy one.</p>
<p><br /> “Don’t not evacuate because of the coronavirus,” says Bill Johnson, director of Palm Beach County’s Emergency Management division.</p>
<p><br /> Throughout Palm Beach County, emergency managers and law enforcement officials are brainstorming ideas on how to ensure residents stay safe should a hurricane threaten while the coronavirus remains a health concern.</p>
<p><br /> The topic has been surfacing in daily meetings, where discussions include issues such as how to manage shelters during a pandemic as well as how to keep first responders safe.</p>
<p><br /> “This hurricane season will be unique,” said Highland Beach Police Chief Craig Hartmann. “It’s not just the threat of a storm, it’s also the threat of a virus we can catch from one another.”</p>
<p><br /> One topic of special concern to coastal residents is how to manage evacuations and how to ensure people fleeing a storm have safe places to go.</p>
<p><br /> “Countywide, emergency management teams are working to assure we are capable of handling COVID-19 and evacuations at the same time,” said Ocean Ridge Police Chief Hal Hutchins.</p>
<p><br /> However, the clear message is that the virus threat should not stand in the way of leaving home if you’re told to go.</p>
<p><br /> “The risk to your safety is less if you evacuate than if you stay,” Hutchins said.</p>
<p><br /> With hurricane season’s official beginning on June 1, Johnson and others say now is the time for people who live in evacuation zones to start making plans for where they will go should they be asked to leave their homes.</p>
<p><br /> As always, the recommendation is to find shelter nearby rather than far away. At the same time, people should also search for ways to minimize the risk of contracting COVID-19.</p>
<p><br /> “Is there a way you could shelter with family and friends and still maintain a safe distance?” says Chris Bell, Delray Beach’s new emergency manager.</p>
<p><br /> Johnson says residents should have a Plan B in case the relatives or friends they expect to stay with start feeling ill.</p>
<p><br /> Those who plan to evacuate to a hotel might also want to have a backup plan because hotel rooms could be harder to find — especially if they are used as shelters.</p>
<p><br /> “Potentially there could be fewer hotel rooms available,” says Bell, who served as the director of preparedness for the state of Vermont. “If your plan was a hotel, think of a family you can go to as a backup.”</p>
<p><br /> Statewide and locally, emergency managers are also exploring options to ensure that people who have no other place to go can shelter together safely.</p>
<p><br /> In addition to possibly using hotel rooms, alternatives could include setting up special COVID-19 shelters or requiring those using community shelters to wear masks and stay a specified distance apart.</p>
<p><br /> Hutchins said managers are also looking at ways to ensure that people with transportation needs are able to get to shelters if needed. <br /> Johnson says that no matter where you go if you have to evacuate, the social distancing rules in place now would still apply.</p>
<p><br /> Those same rules would apply to first responders who are often called upon to stay together at a central location during a storm.</p>
<p><br /> Bell says a lot of the practices in place for emergency workers — temperature checks when they enter a building and the wearing of masks even inside — will be employed during a storm emergency.</p>
<p><br /> While evacuations in coastal areas would be likely should a hurricane threaten, Johnson says those evacuations may not be as widespread as they have been in the past.</p>
<p><br /> The county, he said, has been working with the National Hurricane Center on modeling of storm surge to determine degree of threat to certain coastal areas and to help further tailor evacuation zones. That could lead to ordering evacuations on a case-by-case basis.</p></div>Along the Coast: Irma: What we learnedhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-irma-what-we-learned2018-07-04T13:30:00.000Z2018-07-04T13:30:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960800098,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960800098,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960800098?profile=original" /></a><em>Debris removal was a huge headache along the coast. <strong>2017 Coastal Star file photo</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong></p>
<p>Nearly a year after Hurricane Irma, South County coastal cities are honing lessons into actions to prepare their residents, businesses and workers for the next big storm.<br /> Each of the 10 coastal cities and towns received the same list of questions from The Coastal Star, divided into five main categories: communications, curfews, power, shelters and debris removal. <br /> Here are the highlights of their responses:<br /> <strong>For communications</strong>, how did your city/town inform residents of the approaching storm and areas to be evacuated? The three big cities used their websites and social media to alert residents. Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and Delray Beach also have AM radio stations to use.<br /> Smaller locales don’t use social media. In Gulf Stream, its officers alerted residents by going door-to-door, said Town Manager Greg Dunham. Manalapan sent emails about the approaching storm to its residents, said Linda Stumpf, town manager.<br /> Lantana also used a PA system and personal contacts to alert its barrier island residents about evacuating, said Robert Hagerty, Lantana police commander. <br /> Highland Beach found its CodeRED emergency platform most effective in alerting residents about Irma, said Police Chief Craig Hartmann. “For this hurricane season, we will be activating CodeRED notifications sooner and more frequently,” he said. <br /> South Palm Beach, which is primarily condo buildings, sent faxes and emails to condo managers about the mandatory evacuation, said Mo Thornton, town manager. “Patrol officers drove throughout town with lights activated, encouraging residents to evacuate,” she said.<br /> Ocean Ridge used its Twitter and NextDoor accounts, among other methods, to alert residents about the mandatory evacuation, Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said.<br /> Briny Breezes Council President Sue Thaler said the town’s main goal after Irma wasn’t changing procedures but trying to improve communication with the corporation. The idea is to precisely define the roles of the government and corporation in dealing with storms.<br /> How were post-storm communications handled? Most municipal representatives said this issue needs work. <br /> Along with Highland Beach, Delray Beach is pushing residents to sign up for CodeRED now so the city has a way to communicate with its residents post-storm. <br /> South Palm Beach will use Blackboard Connection, similar to CodeRED, to communicate with residents this year, Thornton said. <br /> Out-of-state residents will be issued ID cards that can be used to enter the town at the checkpoints post-storm, Thornton said. As part-time residents, their government-issued IDs don’t have South Palm Beach addresses.<br /> Most municipalities followed the countywide curfew that went into effect at 3 p.m. Sept. 9. Based on advice from its Police Department, Delray Beach asked residents to clear the streets even earlier that day — by 2 a.m. Boca Raton delayed its curfew by one day.<br /> In Boca Raton, “curfews are a challenge to coordinate for us because we’re on the border of Broward County and have many residents that live in one county and work in another or vice versa,” Gibson said. “There needs to be better coordination on curfews.”<br /> <strong>Florida Power & Light</strong>, the main electricity provider, said 95 percent of its customers had power restored within seven days following Irma, compared with 15 days after Hurricane Wilma in 2005.<br /> Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach were able to open their libraries just after the storm to give their powerless residents a place to charge their electronics. <br /> <strong>Shelters</strong> in the public schools were adequate; residents have to bring their own food and bedding. New for 2018, the county will hire two mental health counselors per shelter to help with anxiety issues. <br /> The county has a special needs and pet shelters, which require advance registration.<br /> <strong>Debris removal</strong> proved to be the bane for most municipalities.<br /> Even though the cities and towns had contracts with debris haulers, it became a free-for-all with most of Florida’s 67 counties impacted by Irma. <br /> Gov. Rick Scott allowed the Florida Department of Transportation to hire haulers without going through a bidding process, Neal de Jesus, interim city manager during Irma, told Delray Beach city commissioners in September. Scott wanted to quicken the pace of cleanup in the Keys and Miami-Dade County, which were hardest hit.<br /> As a result, contractors left Palm Beach County cities where they were making $7 per cubic yard to earn as much as $18 per cubic yard hauling debris farther south. <br /> Delray Beach commissioners and Boca Raton council members agreed to pay AshBritt haulers more per cubic yard, until Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi started to investigate AshBritt and other haulers for price gouging. AshBritt no longer sought the price increases.<br /> Then, the problem became not enough truck drivers.<br /> Boca Raton purchased a few more trucks this year to help with post-storm cleanup, Gibson said. <br /> Many municipal representatives think the governor needs to set a pre-storm, standard rate for debris removal.</p></div>